Two men who’d just gotten out of a Dorchester court hearing on gun charges got into a brawl with two other men and a teenager while still in the courthouse Wednesday morning.
The five were all on the second floor of the Dorchester courthouse, 510 Washington St. in Codman Square when the brawl shortly after 10 a.m., the Boston Police Department reports.
Law-enforcement officers from other agencies already in the courthouse began to separate the battlers when BPD officers arrived, handcuffed them all and got them downstairs to the prisoner holding area to await transport to a nearby police station for booking, police say. Police add that one of the cuffed combatants still managed to kick an adversary and then spit at him, only he missed, “striking an officer with his saliva.”
Among those arrested on charges of affray and disrupting court proceedings: Damontay Brown, 20, and Terrel Stokes, 19. Both had just gotten out of hearings before Judge Nicholas Brandt – scheduled for 9:45 a.m. – related to their arrests on gun charges on Aug. 23 of last year. BPD says they were hanging out on the steps of a house on Pasadena Road in Mattapan, “as if they were waiting for someone,” police say, adding that when officers went to investigate, they found they were both carrying loaded guns.
Court records show that in both cases on Wednesday, Suffolk County prosecutors dropped charges of unlawful possession of large-capacity feeding devices, still leaving them facing charges of unlawful possession of loaded firearms and ammunition.
Following their arrests on the brawling charges, their $1,000 bail on the gun charges was revoked, court record show.
Also charged with affray and disrupting court proceedings: Syncere Johnson, 19, and Shamar Passley-Clark, both from Dorchester. A 17-year-old, too young to have his name released, was charged with being delinquent for affray, disrupting court proceedings, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a police officer, police say.
Passley-Clark had his bail set at $1,000. Judge Jonathan Tynes then ordered him held at the Suffolk County Jail when he could not come up with that amount, court records show. Court records do not yet indicate the status of Johnson’s case.
