In three separate incidents occurring within an hour of each other early Saturday morning, five people were shot -- one fatally.
The gunplay erupted in the hours leading up to the J’ouvert parade, which heralds Boston’s annual Caribbean Festival.
Last year, six were shot and eight were stabbed in the hours before to the parade, according to Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans.
“We were hoping we didn’t have a repeat of last year,” Evans said, “but unfortunately we’re going to be burying another person.”
Evans said that the four to five hours before the 6 a.m. start of the parade are – every year -- among the city’s most violent.
One of Saturday’s gunshot victims was discovered at the Jubilee Christian Church on Blue Hill Avenue, the site of last year’s funeral 26-year-old Dawnn Jaffier, who was killed by a stray bullet from a gang shoot out during the J’ouvert parade.
