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70-year-old man arrested with assault rifle, 350 rounds in Dorchester

Boston Police Department

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A 70-year-old man was arrested for possession of an assault rifle and high-capacity magazines containing more than 350 rounds of ammunition, and a 29-year-old woman was apprehended for heroin possession in Dorchester on Tuesday, according to Boston police.

Police Commissioner William B. Evans said in a statement that such military-style weapons make the city’s streets more dangerous.

“There is no need for any citizen in the city of Boston to be carrying high powered weapons of this kind, and there are just too many of these guns out there,” he said.

“My greatest concern is the safety of our residents and neighborhoods, and my officers and I will continue to do our part to keep high capacity firearms and assault rifles off the streets of Boston and out of the wrong hands,” Evans continued.

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Officers from the department’s Neighborhood Drug Control Units were conducting an investigation near the intersection of Columbia Road and Massachusetts Avenue around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday when they saw the woman, Krista McCaffrey of Winthrop, get out of a Ford Explorer, walk into the nearby KFC, and conduct what appeared to be a drug deal, according to the statement.

Officers followed McCaffrey back to the Explorer, where she climbed into the front passenger’s seat and 70-year-old Stephen White, also of Winthrop, waited in the driver’s seat, police said.

When the officers approached the SUV and spoke to McCaffrey, she produced a plastic bag containing a brown powder that appeared to be heroin, police said.

White told officers that he was armed, and they found that he had a loaded .45-caliber handgun on his belt, police said. Elsewhere in the SUV, he also had an AR-15-style assault rifle, 10 loaded high-capacity magazines, and a tactical ballistic body armor vest.

Police arrested White and charged him with knowingly being present where heroin is kept, unlawful possession of a large-capacity firearm, and 10 counts of unlawful possession of a large-capacity feeding device, police said.

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Officers arrested McCaffrey and charged her with possession of class B drugs; she also had outstanding default warrants from South Boston District Court for possession of Class E drugs and for unlawful possession of ammunition, police said.

White and McCaffrey were arraigned Wednesday in Dorchester Municipal Court, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said.

White was charged with 10 counts of unlawful possession of a large-capacity feeding device and single counts of unlawful possession of an assault weapon and improper storage of a large-capacity weapon, prosecutors said in a press release.

Bail was set at $7,500. White was also ordered to surrender all firearms. He is due back in court on May 3.

McCaffrey was charged only with possession of heroin. No bail was imposed on McCaffrey, who is due to return to court on May 25, according to the DA’s office.


Correspondent Alana Levene contributed. Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.