Boston police were repeatedly called to slain man’s home
In the past decade Boston police were called to the South End home of a mentally ill man a dozen times — including once for harming himself with a pocket knife — before he was fatally shot by officers early Sunday morning, police said Monday.
But relatives and a neighbor dispute that 31-year-old Terrence Coleman was armed when police shot him dead in the doorway of his Shawmut Avenue home.
Eight years ago, Hope Coleman called police to report that her son, armed with a pocket knife, had cut himself. Terrence Coleman, who was diagnosed with paranoia and schizophrenia about 15 years ago, was off of his medication that day. Hope Coleman was worried he would harm himself, police said.
And two years prior, in November 2006, Hope Coleman walked into a police station and asked officers to remove her son from her home, police said. It was not clear why, but he had threatened to harm himself with a knife earlier that month and to “do battle with her,” police said. He was safely removed from the home and taken to Boston Medical Center to be evaluated.
Of the 12 times police officers responded to the home for domestic calls, four were related to Terrence Coleman.
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