A judge has dismissed a domestic violence charge against the Boston man who was injured in a Thanksgiving Day shooting in Central Square that killed 27-year-old Danasia Greene of Cambridge.
The man, Tyrre Herring Jr., 26, had been arrested on a warrant hours after he was shot and held without bail since because he was found too dangerous to release.
Cambridge District Court Judge David E. Frank threw out the charge of violating a restraining order underlying the warrant on Monday after the woman identified as the victim didn’t show up for the scheduled trial as she had allegedly promised. The prosecutor said the woman, a Cambridge resident, would not commit to attending until March, and Frank refused a request from the prosecution to postpone the trial.
The abrupt dismissal in Cambridge District Court didn’t bring authorities closer to solving Greene’s murder. It also didn’t end Herring’s troubles with the law – Middlesex County prosecutors brought new domestic violence charges against him on Jan. 26.
He was in jail on that date, but the charges were for an alleged assault – also involving the woman – almost two months before, on Nov. 1. After the first case was dismissed Monday, prosecutors sought to have Herring held without bail again on the new charge, but Cambridge District Court judge James Murphy set bail at $5,000, or $500 cash. Herring went back to jail because he did not come up with the money. If he does provide bail before the next court date of April 8, he must wear a GPS tracker, stay away from the woman and witnesses, and live at an address in West Roxbury, according to court records.
Herring appeared thin and short-statured and leaned on a cane as he limped slowly Monday into the courtroom area where incarcerated defendants are brought.
None of the domestic violence charges facing Herring involved Greene, and court records did not show any connection between him and the murdered woman.
In fact, there has been little information about Greene, except that she had been charged last May 20 with punching a woman in Central Square and that she was known to the community that hangs out on benches near River Street and Massachusetts Avenue. When she was accused of assault, police listed her address as 20 Child St., North Point. The charges against Greene were dropped when she died. According to Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine Elow, neither victim of the Nov. 23 shooting was homeless.
The shooting shortly after midnight on Magazine Street near the Central Square Church, at a time when many people were enjoying themselves in the area, alarmed residents. The city held a community meeting Dec. 6 to discuss the incident. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said then that the shooting was “obviously another example of a gun on the street. And it is also what we believe at this point to be the result of an ongoing dispute between people who knew each other.” Ryan also said she expected “that we will get to a resolution of this matter fairly shortly.”
Ryan’s spokesperson Meghan Kelly said Tuesday that the investigation “remains active and ongoing.” She added: “While investigators have made some progress, law enforcement continues to urge the public to contact the Cambridge Police Criminal Investigations Unit with any information. Tips can be submitted anonymously through the tip line at 617-349-3370 or online at cambridgepolice.org/tips.”
Kelly didn’t say why prosecutors had waited almost two months to bring new charges against Herring, or comment on the dismissal. Herring’s court-appointed lawyer, Ismail Mohammed, declined to comment.
The woman filed a handwritten plea in the earlier case against Herring asking that Herring be released while awaiting trial. She said that their son “talks to him every day” and that keeping him in jail during the holidays would hurt. “This is going to cause our family so much pain and suffering,” her Nov. 30 statement said. “I’m devastated by this action.”
Herring has other domestic violence accusations in his record, in Boston as well as Cambridge. Authorities said he was involved in a shooting in Boston in 2020. He pleaded guilty to weapons violations and was sentenced to one and a half years in the Essex County House of Correction in June 2021.
This post was updated Feb. 21, 2024, to remove the name of a person involved in the Tyrre Herring Jr. case.
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