BOSTON — A man with an assault-style rifle fired randomly at passing cars while striding down a busy road outside Boston, wounding two people and sending drivers scrambling until he was wounded when a state trooper and a former Marine opened fire, authorities said.
As bullets tore through at least a dozen cars, including a state police cruiser, panicked motorists abandoned their vehicles or hid under them for cover, according to prosecutors and state police. Authorities said the gunman fired more than 60 rounds during the Monday afternoon attack.
The shooting happened on a heavily traveled road along the Charles River in Cambridge, home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sidewalks and riverside paths in the area are often crowded with pedestrians, joggers and cyclists.
“While people were jumping from their cars, scattering in various directions … both that trooper and that civilian, rather than going in one direction, went toward the suspect with their weapons to try to end that situation,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference Monday night.
The suspect, identified by prosecutors as 46-year-old Tyler Brown of Boston, was shot multiple times in the extremities and is expected to face charges including two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and other gun offenses.
“What happened today cannot stand,” the district attorney said.
Ryan said investigators found no connection between Brown and the people targeted in the shooting. She renewed her call for harsher penalties on people who fire weapons without regard for the risk of serious injury.
Brown was not medically ready to go to court for an arraignment, the Cambridge District Court said Tuesday. The Committee for Public Counsel Services has been appointed to defend him, and a message seeking comment was left with the agency on Tuesday.
A message was also left at a phone number listed for Brown and a potential family member, while another possible relative said they didn’t know him.
Casey and Ramer write for the Associated Press. Ramer reported from Concord, N.H.
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