A man armed with a machetelike knife and “in apparent distress” died at Massachusetts General Hospital Wednesday after being shot by a police officer, authorities said.
The man was identified as Sayed Faisal, 20, possibly a student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, said district attorney Marian Ryan in a press conference held at around 9:45 p.m. at Cambridge police headquarters. Faisal was not known to law enforcement authorities before today, she said.
The incident took place at 1:15 p.m. at Chestnut and Waverly streets in Cambridgeport, when the man was shot by an officer, given medical aid and removed while police and public safety workers stayed on the scene investigating. Drivers were warned to expect traffic delays, but there was no threat to the public at that point, said Jeremy Warnick, director of communications and media relations for Cambridge police.
After the man died from his injuries, Ryan and Cambridge police commissioner Christine Elow confirmed in 4:41 p.m. press release that there had been a fatal officer-involved shooting.
“The very early stages” of an investigation led by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office was underway, according to Ryan and Elow.
Police were alerted to a problem with a 911 call from a resident who saw Faisal jump out of a neighboring building and begin cutting himself with glass from the window and what’s known as a kukri knife – a curved blade of 10 to 12 inches that the caller described as a “machete,” Ryan said.
Approached by police, Faisal ran with knife through several blocks of the neighborhood, passing the train tracks and Albany Street in a rough circle.
The Live Boston 617 site, in an extensive account on the incident based on scanner reports, described a chase from 254 Sidney St. to Putnam Avenue, Waverly Street and finally to 59 Chestnut St. The Sidney Street location that is believed to be the start of the incident is Putnam Green, 40-unit affordable housing project.
Faisal came at police, still armed, and an officer discharged a nonlethal “sponge round” meant to startle; Faisal kept on, law enforcement officials said.
“He continued to advance toward officers in possession of the weapon. One officer discharged this department-issued firearm and struck Faisal,” said a district attorney’s release issued after the press conference.
Ryan would not say how many shots had been fired, or the number of wounds Faisal sustained.
The officer firing a lethal round has been placed on leave, as is standard in these situations. Elow said her officers are trained extensively in deescalation tactics, and in this case “our officers tried several times to engage the man verbally.” But he ran for five blocks through a neighborhood wielding a dangerous weapon, she noted.
“Any time life is lost in the community, it is tragic,” Elow said, noting that a Cambridge officer was with Faisal’s family Wednesday night,
A community meeting will be held next week to discuss the incident, Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Yi-An Huang said in a statement Wednesday night.
“We are deeply saddened by the fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred today in Cambridge on January 4. Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” the officials said. “The District Attorney’s Office will be conducting a thorough and transparent investigation with the full cooperation of the city and the police department. We will review all of the facts and findings as they become available and we are committed to learning from this case to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone in our community. This tragic loss of life impacts all of us across the city.”
Any member of the public with information or video of the incident should contact the Cambridge police, Warnick said.
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Police killed more people than ever in 2022. Really sad to see this here.
“Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” the officials said.”
Simply unbelievable that Siddiqui and Huang wrote this. What if that knife wielding person had
stabbed someone in his run? What would they have thought then.
Siddiqui and the rest of the councillors simply don’t care about the safety of Cambridge residents. No CCTV. Thoughts and condolences to the knife carrier.
Cambridge is becoming a woke city in the worst possible way. Vote these people out of office. Oh, it’s not going to happen because of out totally
dysfunctional voting system.
@mrchatterbox
“Police killed more people than ever in 2022. Really sad to see this here.”
No, it’s really sad that police are criticized by people like you, when all they are trying, and trying very hard, to do, is to protect us. Are there rogues? Of course. But almost all of them serve to protect us. The next time you need a cop to help you, perhaps you won’t be so negative on what they do.
Terribly sad.
There is a reason I forget his name wrote the central scare article. And also a reason our children left the central scare ymca yrs ago. Unfortunately it takes people actually getting killed for woke to go broke. And more unfortunately it’s not usually just one person it’s a lot more…
This made some national news, our children asked – is this why we don’t go to c square dad – yep… ugh.
Ps had the pleasure of driving yes I drove a car on garden st.
Wow that’s peak stupidity!
Dear Concerned,
I would say you could simply move but I would miss your silly posts.
They make me laugh, imagining you in the dark, muttering to yourself about grainy CCTV footage, all “concerned”.
Hugs and kisses to ya, babe!
Where was the Social Worker? We didn’t see her there
Do supposedly well-trained police, with body armor, really need to kill someone obviously deranged who seems to have been primarily interested in doing harm only to himself?? Hard to believe this is a very good example of implementing the much-heralded “de-escalation training” of CPD officers touted by Comish Elow – but, interestingly, with absolutely ZERO details about how any of this training was actually supposedly deployed. (“Yelling at” the victim??) Can CPD not pull back and, yes, wait?? (What a concept.) Do they really not know how many shots were fired? Unfortunately, we are not convinced we can trust CPD higher ups to be fully forthright and honest about this quite possibly unnecessary killing. BTW, the linked website is pro-cop propaganda which declares, without a shred of evidence, that the officer was “forced to” shoot. Really?? They’ve already started lying about another unfortunate killing. Not good.
“The next time you need a cop to help you…” they’ll show up 30 minutes later to do paperwork.
Another unfortunate killing?
Another article mentions that the police last fatally shot someone in 2002.
Don’t pretend police violence is an issue with Cambridge.
If you care about that much about that issue to make one up where there isn’t one, why don’t you instead move to one of the many localities where it is and put your energies to work there.
Bono never said there was currently a massive problem of police violence in Cambridge. (Nice try, though. Bono does, however, remember as fast back as the infamous case of Larry Largey, who “died in police custody” many years ago… https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1974/10/25/the-strange-death-of-larry-largey/ ) cport88 seems eager to misconstrue reasonable remarks of others and then escalate to personal attacks. (Perhaps you need CPD’s “de-escalation training”? [Oops! May not work so well!]) “Another unfortunate killing” is a reference to America; some of us actually have a scope of thought that encompasses more than just “tranquil Cambridge.” cport88 has evidently already completed his “investigation” of this unfortunate police killing, and concluded there is “nothing to see here.” Bono has not.
p.s. “far back…” (Auto-mistake.)
Good one bud
Yep. Plenty more where that came from, too. We need police to truly protect all of us, not kill individuals obviously experiencing an extreme mental health emergency. Was/is there another way to have handled this extremely challenging situation? I’d like to believe there was/is. The first resort of cops is all too often “compliance.” (i.e., Drop it!) How about a cordon of some sort – with protective barriers to avoid injury to officers – while there’s time to bring in skilled and compassionate mental health specialists? Once this turns into “a confrontation” with armed cops, this result seems almost inevitable.