Thursday, April 25, 2024

An investigation into a Harvard Square shooting incident has led Cambridge Police to make an arrest for drug dealing.

Police said at 12:35 p.m. Sunday that they had arrested Thomas Davis, 27, of Roxbury, on charges of distribution of a Class D drug “as part of our follow-up investigation” into a shooting, said Jeremy Warnick, director of communications and media relations for Cambridge police.

The shooting, which took place shortly before 3:30 a.m. on Eliot Street near near JFK Street, followed “several altercations” between two groups in the Harvard Square area, according to police. One person was shot: an 18-year-old Cambridge resident who arrived shortly afterward at a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Officers went to the hospital to speak with the victim, and detectives will seek video surveillance today and look to speak to other witnesses, Warnick said.

A suspect in the shooting was reportedly seen fleeing toward JFK Street, police said, and officers who responded and canvassed the area found multiple shell casings on Eliot Street.

Davis, after being brought in by police as a potential witness or involved party, “acknowledged he was involved in an altercation prior to the shooting,” Warnick said. The drug arrest resulted from a police search of “an involved vehicle,” which turned up enough marijuana to justify an arrest.

This is the second gunfire incident of the year. On Jan. 23, police said they had responded to reports of shots fired at Cambridge Street and Columbia Street, Inman Square, at around 3:05 a.m. that day. Officers found two shell casings and no victim, as in most reported Cambridge gunfire incidents. There were more than a dozen gunfire incidents in 2018, most without known victims.