By Patrick McGroarty
News Editor

Five shootings and a dramatic standoff in the last ten days ended a quiet period of 33 days in which the C-11 police district that covers most of Dorchester recorded no shootings.

The first Dorchester shooting since February 22 occurred on Tuesday, March 6 when a 16 year-old male was critically wounded after being shot at 6 Greenmount Street.

Then, last Wednesday at 8:16 p.m. officers responded to 61 Bailey Street, where a man in his 40s had been shot multiple times.

At almost the same moment, another man in his 20s was shot at the intersection of Geneva Avenue and Olney Streets. The wound to his leg was considered non-life threatening.

On Friday another shooting occurred on Olney Street, this time of a 18 year-old woman and Roxbury Community College student. Quintessa Blackwell, a Dorchester resident, died of her injuries while being treated at Boston Medical Center.

And over the weekend officers responded to calls for shots fired on Dix Street. Ballistics evidence was recovered, and a man wounded in the incident was transported to Boston Medical Center. His injuries were not life threatening.

The shootings were punctuated by an attention-grabbing incident last Thursday in which dozens of police officers engaged in an afternoon standoff against a man who fired shots into the street in front of his home at 41 Alpha Road. William Blige, 26, fired 10 to 12 shots at police officers who had approached his home because he was believed to be behaving erratically after failing to take medication related to a psychological condition, a source within the department explained. No one was hurt in the volley of shots, but officers assumed defensive positions and engaged Blige in a standoff that dragged on over five hours as family members tried to coax him from the house and officers fired dozens of rounds of tear gas into the home. Bilge eventually surrendered, and an investigation of the home turned up four firearms &endash; including an assault rifle and Uzi machine gun &endash; and three pounds of marijuana.

Also over the weekend, four officers who have joined the department after their Municipal Police Department was incorporated into the BPD have been assigned to C-11. The officers will ride with other officers for two working weeks before beginning their own assignments.

"They'll ride with other guys for two of their weeks, then we'll cut them loose," said C-11 Captain Greland.

A total of 32 officers were laterally transferred from the now defunct Municipal Police Department to the Boston Police Department last month.

Greland said this week that the added manpower would allow him to expand a walking beat in the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood to six officers during the 4 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. shift on days when those officers are on duty. In the remainder of time, at least one cop will walk the neighborhood.