A dispute during a soccer game at Rivergreen Park ended Sunday night with a single rifle shot, a search that pulled in every available Everett cruiser, and, before dawn Monday, the arrest of a 25-year-old Everett man and the seizure of a Second World War era carbine from a home on Wellington Avenue, Everett police said. Nobody was hurt.
Bryan Villeda Pineda, 25, of Everett, was charged with what the department called “several firearm related charges” and was to be arraigned in Malden District Court on Monday, Chief Paul Strong said in a statement posted to the department’s Facebook page Monday morning. The department has not listed the individual counts.
What police say happened
The first public word came in a community notification from Strong on Sunday night. At about 8:45 p.m., he wrote, the department received a report of a man with “an AK 47 machine gun” at River Green Park who had fired one round. “All units responded to the scene but the suspect had left the area,” he wrote.
“It was determined that there was a dispute during the soccer game and the male went to his vehicle, took out the AK-47 and fired off one round,” the chief wrote. Police had no description of the vehicle at that point, detectives were on their way, and there were no injuries. The city lists the park’s address as 1 Rivergreen Drive.
The department’s daily log for Sunday, a public record posted at everettpolicema.com, carries the call at 8:25 p.m. at 5 Air Force Road, the street beside the park. It is classified as an assault with a firearm, and the dispatcher’s note reads “reports gray Kia possible AK47 knife.” Earlier in the day the same log records a 2:34 p.m. call for two cars driving erratically in the Rivergreen Drive parking lot and a directed patrol of the lot at 7:22 p.m. that found everything in order.
The arrest
A second post, which the Boston Globe reported went up around 12:45 a.m. Monday, said a suspect was in custody with help from Somerville police. Strong described him as a 25-year-old Everett man and said detectives were still working in Everett. He thanked Everett officers, the department’s dispatchers, Somerville police and the detective unit, and wrote that the investigation “is still fluid” and that more would be released when it was complete.
Police did not say where the man was taken into custody or what Somerville’s officers did.
Early Monday, the chief wrote, detectives and patrol officers executed a court-authorized search warrant at a residence on Wellington Avenue. “During the search a US M1 Carbine .30 Cal semiautomatic rifle was seized pertaining to this investigation,” he wrote, adding in parentheses that “early reports describe weapon as an AK47 type weapon.”
“I would like to commend the Detectives and Officers assigned to the Patrol Division for their outstanding work and swift response to this shots-fired incident,” Strong wrote. “This is another example of the professionalism, dedication and teamwork displayed by members of the Everett Police Department.”
Not an AK-47
The M1 carbine is a light .30 caliber rifle issued to American troops in the Second World War and Korea. It is semiautomatic, meaning one shot per pull of the trigger, and it is not an assault rifle or a machine gun in the sense the first callers used. The Globe reported that police said the earlier reports had “incorrectly described the weapon as an AK-47 assault rifle.”
Police have not said whether the rifle was legally owned or whether Villeda Pineda holds a Massachusetts firearms license. Massachusetts law makes it a crime to discharge a firearm within 500 feet of a building in use without the owner’s consent, apart from any licensing or possession counts. Which of those apply here will be clear when the charges are read in Malden District Court.
What is still unknown
Police have not said whether the shot was fired into the air or toward anyone, who was playing, or whether Sunday’s game was a permitted league match or a pickup game. The city requires a permit to use the Rivergreen Park fields. The department has not said what the dispute was about.
The Everett Police Department’s own website had not posted a release as of Monday morning; the three statements were issued through the department’s Facebook page. Boston.com reported Sunday night that the shooter was still at large. NBC Boston, WHDH and the Globe reported the arrest Monday morning.
It is the department’s second high-profile arrest with a neighboring department’s help in two weeks. On October 26, Everett officers stopped a car stolen in Lynn with a child inside and held the driver for Lynn police, who charged him with kidnapping.
An arrest is an accusation. Villeda Pineda is presumed innocent unless and until convicted. Everett MA News will add the charges, plea and any bail conditions when the Malden District Court docket or the Middlesex District Attorney’s office makes them available.
