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Thursday, March 28, 2024

A 15-year-old girl is dead after an apparent assault, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr. said Monday.

At around 6:30 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a report that someone had been thrown to the ground on Cambridge and Warren streets, in the Wellington-Harrington neighborhood, with a preliminary investigation suggesting that the victim was walking to an acquaintance’s house when she was shoved to the ground, striking her head.

The victim was taken to an area hospital in critical condition, but at 2:45 p.m. Monday was pronounced dead.

On Monday, a statement about the death was sent out by Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. “It is with deep sadness that I inform you that a CRLS student has passed away,” he said, explaining support services in place for grieving students and staff. But “due to an ongoing investigation by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, no further information has been released,” Smith said, and “at this point, there is no information regarding services. I will update the community as more information becomes available and in accordance with the family’s wishes.”

Cambridge Youth Programs will remember the student and provide safe and comforting space between 6 and 9 p.m. Tuesday – primarily focused on teens, but open to all, Smith said – at the Moore Youth Center, 12 Gilmore St., Riverside, and Frisoli Youth Center, 61 Willow St., Wellington-Harrington.

Police initially said via Twitter that they were looking for a suspect who had robbed the girl of her purse and fled towards Boston on Cambridge Street; they corrected that some 11 hours later, saying the incident was not believed to be a robbery and telling a resident that the presence of the many police and emergency vehicles on the scene had been “due to the nature of the original call and injuries sustained by the involved party.”

Still, investigators said Tuesday that they are trying to find and identify witnesses to the incident, including information concerning the identity of a person seen in the area on a bicycle. People with information they believe will be helpful may contact Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office at (781) 897-6600, or left anonymously with Cambridge police at (617) 349-3300 0r by calling a hotline at (617) 349-3359 and leaving a message.

This is an open and ongoing investigation, and no further information is being released, including the identification of the girl, Ryan and Bard said. More information would be released when a cause and manner of death is determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, they suggested.

No arrests have been made in connection with this incident.


This post was written from a press release. It was updated July 24, 2018, with information out of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and about the search for witnesses or others with information.