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Drug-dealing English High counselor who recruited students into gang gets 10-year RICO sentence related to shooting one of his charges in the back of the head

A federal judge today sentenced Shaun "Rev" Harrison to ten years in federal prison for helping to run a local chapter of the Latin Kings and for shooting an English High School student point blank in the back of the head in 2015.

US District Court Judge Rya Zobel actually sentenced Harrison, 63, to 18 years, but gave him credit for the eight years he has already spent on an 18-20 year state sentence following his conviction in Suffolk Superior Court for trying to murder Luis Rodriguez. Zobel ruled that his federal sentence will run concurrently with his state sentence, rather than in addition to it - which could mean he does not actually spend any additional time behind bars.

The sentence comes after Harrison pleaded guilty to federal RICO charges in August and admitting he decided to shoot Rodriguez and leave him to bleed out in a Newmarket Square snowbank in a dispute over marijuana sales and Rodriguez's resistance to joining the Latin Kings.

In a civil lawsuit, a judge ordered Harrison to pay Rodriguez $10 million in damages for the permanent facial paralysis, the metal weights he has to wear on his eyelids to help him close them, the intense pain he gets from the bullet still lodged in his head and all the other problems that come from permanent injuries from getting shot in the head by a school counselor. Harrison now makes $33 a week at MCI Norfolk making license plates, so it is unlikely he can ever pay the damages. The judge in the lawsuit case had earlier dismissed Boston Public Schools as a defendant.

In a sentencing memorandum for Zobel, a federal prosecutor described how Harrison used his position as a counselor at English High to groom students, starting by plying them with sandwiches and snacks to sell marijuana, to join the Latin Kings and to work as his enforcers - before he shot Rodriguez, he had another student rough the student up.

The memorandum quotes Rodriguez in a statement he gave about what happened right after the shooting, when Harrison fled, Rodriguez got up, realized he'd been shot, stuck his fingers inside the gaping hole in the back of his head to try to stop the bleeding and waved down a passing motorist who called 9ll.

And when the ambulance came, the guy -- the paramedic came, rushed toward me, and I was just, like, "What happened?" And then he, like, looked at me, and he was, like -- he said – these were his exact words. I'll never forget 'em – he said, "What the fuck, kid. How are you even talking to me right now?

And, you know, I said, "What do you mean?" And he was, like, "Kid, you got a gunshot wound to the back of your head. How are you talking to me now?" And, like -- I was, like, "I don't know, man."

And then they, like, put me in the ambulance, and they brought me to Boston Medical. It was, like, not even two minutes away from there. And that's when, you know, they rushed me into the hospital. And the detective, he was, like, asking me a whole bunch of questions, this and that. But I was -- I was losing too much blood, blood was gushing out of my ear. And when that happens, they said that usually the person ends up dying. They don't even see that in a person who is living.

And I was in denial. I didn't know what had happened, you know. I put my trust into that guy so much, you know what I mean? Like, he was supposed to help me, you know, and I trusted him. I thought that he was going to, you know, help me out. And, you know, like, for him to know everything that I went through, and, like, you know, just to try to just kill a harmless life, I just -- I was in denial.

And then, like, my grandmother and my aunt, like, came to the room, and they were asking me what happened. Nobody wanted to tell them what was going on. So I told them. I said, "I got shot." And they said, like, "What do you mean?" And my grandmother fainted.

And then I said, "I just got shot." And she said, "Where?" And I said, "The back of my head," and that's when she fainted again. And I just said -- she came up to me and tried touching my legs and stuff to make sure I was good. I was like, "I'm not paralyzed." You know, like, I could feel my legs. I said, "I'm all right."

And that's when the doctor came in. And he looked at me, and he looked at everybody in the room and said, "You know, kid, I don't understand how you're alive right now. It's medically and scientifically impossible for you to be alive right now."

And -- that wasn't the exact moment, it was a couple of hours later, actually, after they seen what was wrong with me. And he said that the bullet missed my brain stem and carotid artery by 2 centimeters, and that he had never seen something like that in the whole time he's been a doctor.

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Comments

Yeeesh, 10 years does not seem like much, considering all the young lives he ruined.

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this man was supposed to help these kids find a bright future and he bullied/groomed them into being in a gang and selling drugs. when one resisted he point blank executed him and by some miracle it failed. i'm sorry, but to me that's life in prison.

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How this phony preacher passed a background investigation.

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Actually, it's surprising he didn't end up as superintendent.

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Come for the headlines, stay for the mindless comments.

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Parents should have been RIOTING and calling for heads to roll. Was there a good housecleaning? I don't know the answer. Seriously asking.

Edit: I see that BPS was let off the hook entirely by the courts.

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But your premise suggests that parents these days give an (expletive).

Public schools are just part of the breeding-to-daycare-to-stupid adult pipeline that this country has had since World War II.

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I actually felt a little bad about my comment, that it could be interpreted by people who don't know me as not appreciating Adam's journalism.

But this reply makes me OK with it.

I can assure you the public schools in the wealthy Boston suburbs are just *fine* Will.

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I guess those tireless hours we work to provide years of educational instruction to kids has zero effect, huh? My students come back and visit me years after they graduate. It's because I may have provided something more than a daycare center.

Also, you have to go to college to be a teacher and you have to take classes that assume you know a baseline of info from high school. Calculus wasn't my first introduction to math.

Not to mention all students have to take a test to graduate high school in MA. How do you think they pull that off?

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You sound like a nice entitled person.

My parents couldn't afford a private school so we all went to BPS. Everyone I knew went to BPS and ya know what? My friends graduated from Harvard, MIT, UMass, Amherst, Dartmouth and some chose not to go to college & went right to work (lazy, stupid slobs that they are).

This kind of attitude is a large part of the problem. You get what YOU put into BPS. Are there issues w/in BPS? 100%! BUT they also aren't there to cater to your every whim and need. Sometimes you also need to parent and work hard for your kids education.

Parents have made teachers take on the roles nurses, therapists, sex-ed educators, the list goes on and on - all for shite $ and being blamed for everything.

How about this... move straight to the burbs rather than moving into the city, taking up its resources, driving the housing market sky high and then when Jr. turns 6 move to Newton, Needham or Wellsley.

Or maybe work to get public schools great all over the state - not just the rich areas.

But what do I know? I'm jut a stupid BPS graduate.

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I can tell that you went to Latin. That's all.

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I didn’t go to Latin. I was raised in Mattapan and went to the local BPS elementary school, middle and high school. I went to college and medical school. All of my friends were public school grads (not from BLS or BLA). We all went to college and today we are lawyers, doctors, nurses, nurses practitioners and civil servants. BPS certainly has its issues, however I am grateful for the educators and administrators who poured so much love into us.

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It just seems like a VERY light sentence--either for purposely shooting a child in the back of the head OR for 'accidentally' permanently maiming another human being. I assume he was super repentant, has now 'seen the light' and is eager to one day rejoin society as a positive contributor, and luckily found a judge who is confident that 'the system' can heal this wretched soul. I lack optimism.

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I thought English High was tough when I was there in the 80s. lolol

I don't have it out for BPS but they should have some skin in this game...as in the city should be liable and pay the $10m to the kid and his family.

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unbearable. completely unbearable.

character education much?

nah. not so much. too busy with other stuff.

I cannot understand how the employer gets off so easy unless the answer is simply that on multiple levels not enough people actually know what it means to give a shit

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I think that you are going to have a tough time coming up with an approved curriculum for character development and pedagogy.

You are certainly right that there is a need, but if parents and the culture at large isn't supporting character development, I think expecting schools to cover much of it if any is wishful thinking. I hope I'm wrong.

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who is going to enforce discipline there now?

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