Reverend calls for ‘cease fire’ after fatal Roxbury shooting

A local reverend is calling on Boston’s Black community to help put an end to recent violence, including by turning in firearms, after a 42-year-old Brockton man was shot and killed in Roxbury on Saturday night.

Authorities responded to 2055 Columbus Ave. around 10:17 p.m. and found a man suffering from a gunshot wound, Boston police said. The victim was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

WCVB reported the victim’s family has identified him as Christopher Shivers.

On Sunday, the Rev. Kevin Peterson, the founder of the New Democracy Coalition, called for the public to come together and help identify a suspect, according to Boston 25 News.

“We call on residents of the Black community to turn in the murderer of Christopher Shivers who was victimized in Roxbury Saturday night on the eve of Easter,” Peterson said in a statement, the news station reports. “Our prayers are extended to the loved ones of the deceased but we also call upon the Black community to cease fire. So far, the vast majority of murders this year have occurred in the city’s Black community. This has to stop.

“We are at a point within Boston’s Black community where it makes sense that we call on all Black people who have guns in Boston to turn them into local churches, post offices or local police stations. And we ask that the police increase its gun buyback program to $1,000 for each gun turned in with no questions asked.”

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Boston police homicide detectives at 617-343-4470.

Last month, 56-year-old Jose Despeignes was shot and killed in Roxbury. Police arrested 36-year-old Austin Dillon, of Dorchester, with Despeignes’s murder.

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