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.