fb-pixelWoman, 24, is shot to death while sitting in car in Dorchester - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Woman, 24, is shot to death while sitting in car in Dorchester

Friends of Alicia Restrepo, 24, brought candles and flowers to a growing memorial near the spot where she was shot on Monday night.Jerome Campbell/Globe Staff

A 24-year-old woman was shot and killed while sitting in a car in Dorchester on Monday night, the eighth person to be slain in Boston in less than two weeks, according to police.

The woman was identified by friends and a family member as Alicia Restrepo. Police declined to confirm her identity on Tuesday.

A law enforcement official briefed on the case said the woman was not the intended target of the attack.

“She was a good girl; she always took care of other people,” said a 21-year-old man who identified himself as E.C. and said he had known Restrepo since high school. “She was almost like the mom of the group.”

Advertisement



The man added, “I’ve lost a lot of friends to violence in the streets, but this one really hurts. I want to bottle it up, but I can’t. She was innocent as they come.”

A police spokesman said homicide detectives are asking for anyone who may have information about the woman or the circumstances of her death to contact them.

Police said officers were called to the intersection of Charles and Ditson streets, in the Fields Corner section of the neighborhood, about 9:36 p.m. Monday. Officers found the woman suffering from gunshot wounds inside the vehicle.

She had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. Investigators are trying to determine who else was in the car.

Throughout the day Tuesday, friends of Restrepo lit candles and left flowers near the spot where she was killed. By the afternoon, several candles had been blown out by the breeze, and another group of the victim’s friends came by and relighted them.

Many of her friends regarded her as a family member, they said, recounting instances when she went above and beyond to help them during times of need.

Advertisement



“She’s not a friend. She’s family,” said a 19-year-old woman who identified herself as K.L. out of concern for her safety. “She would always answer the phone when I had a problem and come check on me.”

Eight people have been killed in eight separate shootings in Boston since Oct. 5, an outbreak of violence that has alarmed residents, community activists, and city officials.

“We are looking into why this is happening,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Tuesday. “You can’t stop them. A lot of these homicides are not straightforward; there [are] a lot of complications to them.”

Walsh called the woman’s killing “a sad situation.” Noting that it comes as police have taken nearly 600 guns off the street so far this year, he said it may be time to rethink gun possession laws.

Walsh said he supported efforts to reduce the number of people imprisoned, but not when it comes to illegal possession of firearms.

“We might have to think about doing something more severe when it comes to guns,’’ he said. “The issue is too much access to guns.”

Walsh also said that the upsurge in violence is isolated to certain spots in the city, and that it appears to involve targeted victims.

On Charles Street in Dorchester on Tuesday, a visibly distressed Yashira Torres, 36, leaned against her bowed plastic fence and wiped away tears as she looked toward the location of the shooting.

Torres, a mother of four, said she was cleaning her kitchen Monday night when she heard seven gunshots in rapid succession.

Advertisement



“It was crazy,” Torres said. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God, it sounds so close.’ ”

Torres looked outside her window and saw a white BMW sedan parked near 41 Charles St. with a rear door open.

Neighbors who wished to remain anonymous because they feared for their safety said the BMW had been parked there for about two hours leading up to the shooting.

Torres said roughly eight cruisers flooded the street minutes after the attack and cordoned off the area in front of her house. She said she was concerned for her children.

“They knew they heard gunfire and were asking me, ‘What happened, Mommy? Why are the police here?’ ” Torres said. “I had to tell them the truth, and I don’t really know how they’re handling it. It’s too early to tell.”

Cyrus Kisitu said he was waking up for his overnight shift when he heard gunshots.

“I thought I was dreaming, or maybe there were fireworks,” said Kisitu. “As I was running for the train, I saw a white car on the street and someone laying down in the front.”

The city has logged 47 homicides so far this year, compared with 43 at the same time in 2017, according to police. The 10-year average for homicides is 54, police said. Nonfatal shootings so far this year are down by 26 percent, total major crime is down 4 percent, and police have seized 581 guns.

Advertisement



Community leaders said Tuesday they were troubled by the recent spate in violence.

“We all know that there are too many illicit guns on the street, but we have to have a multifaceted approach” to violence prevention, said the Rev. William E. Dickerson II, pastor of Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Dorchester.

“There’s law enforcement, there is parental enforcement, there is educational enforcement, and there’s the village concept,” Dickerson said. “It takes a village to raise a child and we have gotten away from that.”

Emmett Folgert, longtime head of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative, said Tuesday morning that he had “been up most of the night” in the aftermath of the young woman’s death.

“This is our biggest spike in violence, of homicides, in years and years,” said Folgert, whose organization works with at-risk youth. “This is worse than last year, worse than the Fourth of July.”


Mike Bello, Danny McDonald, and Milton J. Valencia of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Jerome Campbell can be reached at jerome.campbell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeromercampbell. John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.