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Boston police thwart suicide attempt

Mandistraught over breakup

A Boston Police Department Swat Team member focused Sunday on a Gayland Street house, where a man was thought to be holding a gun to his head and threatening to commit suicide. Police found him at his mother’s house on Judson Street.BILL BRETT FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Boston police blockaded Gayland and Judson streets in Dorchester Sunday afternoon when a 26-year-old man threatened to commit suicide because his girlfriend recently had broken up with him, police said.

The man, a resident of Gayland Street whom police did not identify, text-messaged his ex-girlfriend a photo of himself holding a gun to his head, Boston police Superintendent in Chief Daniel Linskey said. The man also told his daughter, a teenager, that he was going to kill himself, Linskey said.

The man’s daughter went to her grandmother, who lives around the corner on Judson Street, and told her about the father’s threats, Linskey said. The grandmother, who is the man’s mother, called police. They responded shortly after 3:30 p.m. with canine units and Special Operations officers, blocking the area for more than two hours.

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Linskey said that police had been called to stop the man from committing suicide at least once before.

Upon arrival Sunday, police set off two “flash bangs” — distraction devices to disorient suspects — then entered the house, but could not find the man, Linskey said. Officers eventually found him at his mother’s house on Judson Street and took him to Boston Medical Center for a psychiatric evaluation.

The man was not injured, Linskey said. He said that the man did not take hostages and cooperated with police. Linskey said police planned to search the home for the gun, for which the man does not have a license.


Gal Tziperman Lotan
can be reached at
gal.lotan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @tzigal.