Blue lives matter most.
"Weymouth shaken after officer, bystander both shot and killed" by Jeremy C. Fox, John Hilliard and Lucas Phillips Globe Correspondents July 15, 2018
WEYMOUTH — A police officer and a local woman were shot and killed in a quiet residential neighborhood Sunday morning after a 20-year-old man allegedly crashed a car, attacked the officer, stole his gun, and used it to shoot both victims, according to the Norfolk district attorney’s office.
Weymouth Officer Michael Chesna, 42, died in the line of duty, and a nearby resident was shot and killed in her home, allegedly by Emanuel “Manny” Lopes, 20, officials said.
“This is an awful day for Weymouth and for Massachusetts,” District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said in a statement.
Lopes is in custody and is expected to be arraigned Monday on two counts of murder, authorities said.
About 7:30 on Sunday morning, Weymouth police responded to a report of an erratic driver near South Shore Hospital, Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Greg Connor said in a news conference Sunday at Weymouth police headquarters.
Chesna, who was due to end his shift at 8 a.m., arrived to find a BMW sedan involved in a single-car crash, from which the alleged driver, Lopes, had fled on foot, officials said. Chesna found Lopes allegedly throwing rocks at a home on Burton Terrace near its intersection with Torrey Street, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.
The officer “exited his vehicle; he drew his firearm and commanded this man to stop,” Connor said.
Lopes allegedly attacked Chesna and struck him in the head with a large rock, officials said. Chesna fell to the ground and may have been unconscious, as Lopes allegedly took the officer’s gun and shot Chesna four times in the head and torso, according to officials.
Another officer arrived and saw Lopes allegedly standing over Chesna with a gun. The officer fired his gun through the windshield of his police cruiser, striking Lopes at least once in the lower leg, officials said.
Lopes allegedly fled on foot, still holding Chesna’s gun, Connor said.
“During the foot chase through the yards of Burton Terrace, it is believed Mr. Lopes discharged Officer Chesna’s firearm an additional three times, striking a local resident in her home” and killing her, Connor said.
Lopes was captured soon after he fired the shots, officials said. Chesna and Lopes were both taken to South Shore Hospital. Connor said it was unclear Sunday whether Lopes would be arraigned in court or at the hospital.
Investigators have not released the second victim’s name.
Around the corner from the scene of Chesna’s shooting, a black vehicle from the Office of the State medical Examiner pulled into the driveway of a Torrey Street home, where bullet holes were visible in a window, shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday. About 4:15 p.m., officials could be seen leaving the white 2½-story house carrying a black body bag on a stretcher.
Chesna was an Army veteran who had served in the Middle East, a husband, and father of two.
Chesna’s father-in-law, Francis Doran, 78, of Marshfield, said he is worried for Chesna’s two young children, who are left without a father.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to Mike and Cindy’s boy and girl. I don’t know how much a 4-year-old understands, how much a 9-year-old understands,” he said in a phone interview. “They absolutely loved their father.”
Doran also spoke of his anger over the slaying.
“This guy had no mercy,” he said of Lopes. “What the hell is he shooting him for? A cop is just a human being.”
Lopes was known to Weymouth police, authorities said. He was arrested in September 2017 for vandalism at a Weymouth dry cleaners, according to a police blotter post.
The next month, Lopes was charged with selling cocaine to minors in North Weymouth, the Patriot-Ledger reported at the time. A report from the incident quoted police as saying officers had “fought with him before.”
In that arrest, Lopes also attempted to flee police, running into a wooded area where he had to be found by a police dog, the Patriot-Ledger reported.
A woman at a Brockton address listed for Lopes in the police blotter declined to comment on the case Sunday afternoon.
The shootings rocked a suburban neighborhood on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning.
Resident April Visco, 43, said she heard a rapid succession of 10 to 20 shots about 7:30 a.m. and ran outside her house to see what happened.
She heard someone yell three times, “Get on the ground,” she said.
Several marked and unmarked police cruisers appeared on the scene within moments, she said, and she saw a man being placed into a police cruiser about 20 minutes later.
After police arrived, Visco saw several officers crying and hugging one another, she said.
Torrey Street resident Tobias Macey said he “heard multiple shots” and a lot of yelling Sunday morning.
All day Sunday, police — including uniformed Weymouth and Braintree officers, State Police troopers, Plymouth County sheriff’s deputies, and members of other agencies — cordoned off a large stretch of Torrey Street from Park Avenue past the intersection with Burton Terrace.
Further up Burton Terrace, officers, including a K9 unit, could be seen investigating outside a home. Aerial drones hovered overhead.
A white BMW sedan was taken from the scene on a flatbed truck and brought to South Shore Hospital, where it sat through the early afternoon at the intersection of Main and Columbian streets.
Columbian Street was cordoned off by yellow police tape, while State Police and a Quincy police cruiser blocked access to the street, which leads to the hospital’s emergency department.
A somber procession of vehicles from area police departments and from the Office of the State Medical Examiner left South Shore Hospital shortly after 1:30 p.m. and drove north on Main Street toward Route 3.
Officers from multiple departments lined the street and saluted as Chesna’s body passed.
The body arrived about 2 p.m. at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner headquarters in Boston’s South End, where police officers and other emergency personnel again saluted as the procession made its way down Albany Street.
Boston police Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross told reporters that the procession was a sign of respect for the officer....
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"Family, neighbors mourn for slain Weymouth officer Michael Chesna" by Lucas Phillips Globe Correspondent July 16, 2018
Family, neighbors, and fellow officers mourned slain Weymouth police Officer Michael Chesna as a beloved father and husband who was devoted to his community.
Chesna, 42, a six-year veteran of the Weymouth Police Department, was shot with his own gun Sunday morning after pursuing a suspect, authorities said. The suspect, Emanuel Lopes, 20, attacked Chesna with a large stone, knocking him down before taking his gun and shooting the officer in the head and chest, the Norfolk district attorney’s office said at a press conference.
Chesna, a military veteran and father of two, died minutes away from his childhood home, bringing an outpouring of grief in the area where he grew up, said his father-in-law, Francis Doran, 78, in a phone interview.
Chesna met his wife, Cynthia, while working part time at a bar in Quincy about 15 years ago, Doran said. Chesna had been working there to help pay his way through a criminal justice degree at Northeastern University, he said.
The two married before Chesna served two overseas tours with the Army, first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, Doran said.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to my daughter,” who grew up in nearby Braintree, Doran said. “She was totally in love with him.”
He said he also worries for his granddaughter, 9, and grandson, 4, who have been left without a father. Doran said Chesna will also be mourned by lifelong friends he made in the Army and friends from Weymouth with whom he played pickup basketball on Wednesdays.....
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"Alleged Weymouth killer had history of instability, run-ins with the law" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff July 16, 2018
WEYMOUTH — The 20-year-old man accused of shooting and killing a Weymouth police officer and a woman in her home this weekend has a history of drug use, instability, and run-ins with the law, according to friends and court records.
Emanuel A. Lopes is accused of shooting Officer Michael C. Chesna about 10 times with the officer’s own gun and then firing three rounds into the sliding glass doors of Vera Adams’s Torrey Street home, fatally wounding the 77-year-old widow, authorities alleged Monday.
When police captured Lopes, he was still holding Chesna’s pistol, and evidence suggests he had fired all 15 or 16 bullets it held, police wrote in a report.
Friends and court records described Lopes as a troubled man who attempted suicide when he was a sophomore at Weymouth High School, according to a childhood friend.
Nick Donovan, who has remained close with the suspect, said that Lopes was in the waiting room of the guidance counselor’s office when he grabbed a pair of dull scissors and repeatedly stabbed himself in the neck.
“He tried to kill himself,’’ Donovan said, adding that Lopes had a “troubled” relationship with his mother and his stepfather. Lopes lived at Donovan’s house for several months in 2017 after a series of arguments at home.
Then he should be cleared of all charges then.
Relatives of Lopes could not be reached.
Will Perron, who was a year ahead of Lopes in middle and high school, said Lopes was “unpredictable” — known to be aggressive and get into fights.
During middle school, Perron said, Lopes hit him over the head with a textbook and fought him.
“It’s always been a short-fuse situation,” he said. “He’s never had the ability to reel in that temper.”
Lopes was arrested by Weymouth police at least twice before, according to court records.
In September, he was arrested after he allegedly threw a rock through the window of a house on Lee Street, where residents had ordered him to leave, according to a police report.
In October, Lopes was charged by Weymouth police with selling cocaine to minors and resisting arrest.
“We have fought with him before,’’ Officer Edward Hancock wrote in an arrest report.
“[Lopes’s] mother was spoken to via the phone,’’ Hancock wrote. “She stated that she was going to go to Quincy District Court and [involuntarily committing] [Lopes] first thing in the morning, and was planning an intervention before this incident occurred.”
Lopes was involuntary committed to a treatment center to determine whether he had an alcohol or substance use disorder, according to court records. Lopes remained in custody until Nov. 8, 2017, when a friend posted $500 cash bail. But by Nov. 25, Lopes was off the streets and was receiving “clinical stabilization services” as an inpatient at the High Point Treatment Center, according to court records. He remained there at least until mid-December, but his release date was not immediately clear.
The ferocity of the Sunday morning attack was outlined in a police report filed in Quincy District Court, where Lopes is expected to be arraigned on two counts of murder. The suspect, who was shot in the leg by a Weymouth officer as he ran away from the scene, was not healthy enough to face a judge Monday and is slated to be arraigned Tuesday.
According to the police report, the violence erupted around 7:30 a.m. Sunday in a normally quiet neighborhood near South Shore Hospital, where Lopes had crashed a car and then fled from police.
Chesna was sent to investigate. Chesna found Lopes on Burton Terrace, where he was throwing decorative stones into the windows of a home owned by someone who did not know Lopes, police wrote in the report.
Lopes, who is 6 foot 3 and weighs 175 pounds, threw a large rock at Chesna, who was standing in the middle of the street about 10 to 12 feet away, police said. The rock struck Chesna in the head, causing him to fall to the ground and drop his gun, the report said.
At that point, police say, Lopes picked up Chesna’s gun, stood over Chesna, and fired about five times into Chesna’s head and five times into his legs and torso, police wrote.
When Weymouth Officer Sean Murphy arrived, he saw Lopes standing over Chesna with the gun pointed toward the officer, the report said. Murphy fired at least one round through his windshield, wounding Lopes in one leg, police wrote.
Chesna, 42, and the father of two children, ages 9 and 4, was pronounced dead at South Shore Hospital.
Lopes was able to run off after being shot by police. While being pursued, he fired three shots into the home of Adams, who was struck and killed, police wrote.
On the day after the shooting, friends described Adams as a shy retiree who loved reading mystery and crime novels.
“She was just a wonderful, wonderful person — do anything for you,” said Sandra Boucher, 76, the sister of Adams’s late husband, Donald Adams.
Residents and officials grieved the deaths of Adams and rallied to support Chesna’s family.
Chesna, an Army sergeant, served in Iraq from September 2007 to October 2008 and in Afghanistan from April 2010 to April 2011. Among other decorations, he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal, according to the Pentagon.
On Monday, mourners lined the route between Boston and Weymouth as Chesna’s body was escorted by his fellow officers from the state medical examiner’s office to the McDonald Keohane Funeral Home.
Some people standing on the sidewalk put a hand over their hearts. A few carried small American flags.
Matthew Menz, a Weymouth firefighter, came with his two daughters, ages 2 and 4 months, to pay his respects. He had met Chesna on duty, he said.
“To see this is just so sad,” Menz said. “I don’t even know how to get it into words.”
Chesna’s father-in-law, Francis Doran, 78, of Marshfield, said Sunday he was worried for Chesna’s two young children.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to Mike and Cindy’s boy and girl. I don’t know how much a 4-year-old understands, how much a 9-year-old understands,” he said in a telephone interview. “They absolutely loved their father.”
Weymouth Mayor Robert L. Hedlund praised the generosity of residents and business owners who have pledged donations to help Chesna’s family.
“There’s been a huge outpouring of financial assistance for the family coming from all directions,” he said.
I hope it isn't a scam.
The mayor also expressed horror that Adams was “senselessly murdered” while sitting in her home.
She was such a good person, and would be ‘happy to know the community came together.’
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Related:
Man accused of murdering Weymouth officer and bystander held without bail
Also see:
United in mourning for slain Weymouth police officer
Weymouth residents buy up blue lights to honor slain officer
Killed in the line of duty, Weymouth police sergeant laid to rest Friday
Children’s lemonade stand raises $2,000 for Weymouth sergeant’s family
Did they have their permits?
NWU:
Two Falmouth officers involved in shooting expected to survive
