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Breaking: Shooting At Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary

The Associated Press reports that an inmate going for treatment at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston shot a deputy sheriff today and was then shot and critically wounded by another officer:

R23W/flickr
R23W/flickr

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the shooting happened around noon in the emergency room of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. The two officers from Middlesex County were removing the inmate’s handcuffs when the man grabbed for the gun of one of the officers, he said. During the struggle that followed, one of the deputies was shot in the leg.

The other deputy sheriff then fired his weapon, striking the prisoner in the chest, Davis said.

The officer was taken to nearby Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was in stable condition. The inmate, taken to the same hospital, was believed to be in critical condition.

Authorities didn’t immediately release the names of the officers or inmate, but Davis said no one else was involved.

“It’s all been contained,” Davis said. “Everybody is either in the hospital or in custody.”

Jennifer Street, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said the hospital remained open, but the emergency room was closed as authorities investigated.

The Boston Globe account quotes witnesses:

Gigi Mitchell, 8, saw the prisoner at the hospital with the deputies but did not see the shooting. “I saw him in the lobby with two policemen and he was all cuffed and chained and he was all bruised,” she said, with her father standing by.

A Winchester woman, who asked not to be identified, said she was in the waiting room. “I heard them trying to control somebody first and then I heard shouting and then I heard the gunshots. It was at least four to six,” she said.

She said the incident happened on the other side of some doors from her. “I saw them trying to get him down” through glass panes in the doors, she said. “It was like a scuffle.”

She said she could tell the situation was serious because of the voices, which “sounded stressed, they sounded it was like an emergency.”

This program aired on July 31, 2013. The audio for this program is not available.

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