Accused Memorial Drive gunman Tyler Brown tried to kill Boston police officers in 2020
CBS News • • nation
Key Points:
- Tyler Brown, 46, allegedly opened fire on passing cars on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before being shot and wounded by a State Police trooper and a civilian and taken into custody.
- Two people in separate vehicles were critically injured and transported to Boston hospitals with life-threatening wounds.
- Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including a 2008 cocaine distribution conviction and a 2020 charge for attempting to kill Boston Police officers, to which he pleaded guilty to multiple charges involving firearm assaults.
- Earlier on the day of the shooting, police issued an officer safety bulletin after Brown's parole officer reported suicidal statements and a video showed him with an assault rifle threatening violence.
- Brown was on probation for prior violent offenses and had been sentenced in 2021 to 5-6 years in prison with mental health treatment, serving about three-and-a-half years; the Suffolk County DA at the time criticized the relatively lenient sentence.