A brawl after a basketball game in Brockton, Massachusetts, involved hundreds of people on Wednesday, and left one teenager dead and two others injured.
All three suffered from stab wounds in the melee at the James Edgar Park, and the unidentified teen was later
pronounced dead at an area hospital, the Boston Globe reported.
Thomas Monaghan, a Brockton city councilor, said on Facebook Wednesday that police and motorcycle patrols had been stepped up in the area in the last week “as I was informed there were some issues in the neighborhood.”
But Brockton resident Dennis Hursey told the Globe, “If we had a police officer here, this would have never ever happened. My heart is broken that kids today have to carry knives and guns.”
Although the stabbing victim’s name had not been released as of Thursday afternoon, family members spoke to the Globe about the incident. Romaldo Lopes, 17, told the newspaper his cousin was stabbed in the stomach, heart, and throat.
Jason Merlino, 18, told the newspaper he went to Brockton High School with the victim.
“He was an outgoing kid. He always had a smile on his face. He always hoped for the best. He never went for the worst,” Merlino said. “He liked to work. I knew he had a little job or something because he would always be writing on Facebook, ‘Time to go to work. Time to get this money.’ He had pride into moving on in his life somewhere other than these streets of Brockton. And now it’s crazy that he’s gone.”
Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter told WCVB that action would be taken to make the area safer, including the installation of cameras.
"We are going to respond very quickly and decisively to this," Carpenter said. "We just rolled the motorcycles out this week. We'll step up additional patrols. We have a community police officer in the neighborhood, and you know, these are the neighborhoods we're fighting for."
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