Teen Shooter Sentenced to 7 Years

A local teenager will spend the next seven years in prison after admitting to shooting two people near the Forest Hills MBTA station early this year.

Reginald Price, 19, of Jamaica Plain, was sentenced to prison in Suffolk County Superior Court after pleading guilty to three counts of armed assault with intent to murder, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

Price, and Nicholas Bootman, 18, of Dorchester were arrested in January after the double shooting in the middle of the afternoon. MBTA Transit Police responded to Forest Hills MBTA station shortly after 2 p.m. on Jan. 26 for a report of a shooting in the upper busway. One victim, a 62-year-old woman, suffered life-threatening injuries when she was shot in the back; a 24-year-old woman was shot in the head. Both were transported to area hospitals and survived. Neither were the gunman’s intended targets.

Surveillance cameras in the station captured two men, later identified as Price and Bootman, enter the station and speak with three other men. A camera captured Price turn with a gun in his hand and shoot at the men before fleeing alongside Bootman in the direction of South Street, prosecutors said. Police stopped the pair soon after.

Two men were arraigned Thursday after Boston Police stopped them as they fled the scene of a double shooting at Forest Hills MBTA station, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

In addition to the armed assault charge, Price faced charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a person over age 60, assault and battery on a person over age 60 causing serious bodily injury, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building.

Before sentencing, the victims submitted impact statements to the court, the Boston Globe reports.

“I lost my sense of safety, my feeling of comfort in my own home, my sense of security when leaving my home to go to school, work, or anywhere else,” the younger victim told the court.

The second victim submitted a written impact statement: “The wounds and internal injuries to multiple organs have left my body weak and unable to perform many daily chores and activities. It has also affected me mentally. I cannot focus and my mind is not the same as before. The anxiety and the depression make living life very difficult and at times feel like I’ve lost the will to live.”