By Gintautas Dumcius
Reporter Correspondent

Dejhan Harrison, a 19-year-old Dorchester man involved in one of a number of arrests stemming from Saturday's Caribbean Festival pled not guilty to charges of having a firearm without a license and carrying a loaded gun at Monday's Dorchester District Court session.

On the watch for potential violence as the annual festival came to a close, officers noticed a crowd near Seaver Street getting aggressive and drunk at about 6:30 pm, according to the police report. While at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Seaver, one officer came upon two black males, including Harrison, squaring off at the Fernandez Liquor Store.

Harrison walked backwards, his left hand holding up his white t-shirt and his right hand holding onto his waistband area.

The officer charged the suspect and the two struggled. The suspect allegedly pulled a black 38-caliber revolver from his waistband and threw it in the air. Police recovered the gun, which was loaded with six rounds of ammunition.

At the Area B-2 police station, where the suspect was booked, Harrison told police he did not have a license to carry the firearm, according to the police report.

Bail was set at $25,000. His next court date is September 25.

Geneva Ave. man accused of stealing cell phone

A Dorchester man was accused of boosting a cell phone off a 23-year-old woman with a baby in a stroller just blocks away from Dorchester District Court, where he was arraigned this week. Prosecutors charged Derrick Williams, 20, of 503 Geneva Ave., with armed robbery last Friday at 420 Washington St., after the woman identified him.

His court-appointed attorney, from the Committee for Public Counsel Services, questioned the police report, noting that he was on the porch of his home when police picked him up, minutes after the incident. The scene of the incident is 15 minutes away in walking distance from the suspect's home, she claimed. Williams had also said he was on the front porch for some time before the police came, according to his attorney.

Another missing piece in the allegations, said the CPCS attorney, was that nothing in the police report indicates the cell phone returned to the woman was hers.

Bail was set at $1,500, with the next court date scheduled for September 27.

According to a police report, the incident occurred last Friday around 9:38 p.m. The victim told police she observed a black male with a black puffy winter vest, plaid shorts and a black hat walking near her as she stopped by a well-lit area by the park near her home, according to the police report. The suspect approached her from behind, hands in pocket as if holding a weapon and grabbed her cell phone off her belt before running down the stairs towards Claybourne Street.

At Vinson Street, police officers saw a person matching the description running down the street, removing a black puffy vest. Police tried to stop the suspect, who attempted to flee into the Geneva Ave. home before getting stopped by police. The suspect was found to have a brown leather cell phone holder and a cell phone matching the description.

The victim was brought to the scene and identified the suspect as the man who took her cell phone. A black knife was recovered from the suspect's shorts at the booking desk at Area C-11 police station.

Sydney St. roommates square off, one arrested

An argument over who was going to use the bathroom escalated into a full-on fight between two roommates at 179 Sydney St.

Joyce Clark, 44, was arrested last week and arraigned this week at Dorchester District Court on charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon: a broom. She pled not guilty.

Clark was released on personal recognizance. But Judge Rosalind Miller granted a restraining order asked for by Clark's roommate, Janet Wilkerson, 51. Clark, who is due back in court on October 26, was ordered to leave the address.

"I have nowhere to go," Clark protested as she was released from the court's holding pen. "Where am I supposed to go?"

Clark told the court she had been trying to move out of the rooming house, after it became apparent she couldn't get along with Wilkerson. She said she was on a waiting list for low-income housing and indicated she would seek a restraining order against Wilkerson.

Last Friday officers responded to the rooming house, with Wilkerson accusing Clark of bruising her neck and right shoulder with a broom handle. Officers went upstairs and spoke with Clark, who acknowledged their past problems and said: "They were supposed to fight with their hands only," according to the police report.

Clark denied she hit Wilkerson with the broom, and said she broke the broom handle in half while trying to poke at something on her ceiling. As officers arrested Clark, she said that Wilkerson maced her with cleaning spray. Officers advised both women to take out restraining orders against each other.

Gintautas Dumcius covers court proceedings and law enforcement for the Reporter. He can be reached at gin.dumcius@gmail.com.