Violence at schools has Lynn cops alert

LYNN – The Lynn police department and its gang unit are stepping up patrols in and around the city’s public schools during what is turning out to be a violent week on school property.As classes were letting out at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute around 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, a 17-year-old male student had a glass beer bottle smashed over his head by Latino gang members from Chelsea, police said.”This incident is believed to be gang-related,” Lynn police spokesperson Lt. David Brown said.Police aren’t sure if the unidentified victim was the intended target because several people were involved in the fight, which took place outside the Annex building of the campus, Brown said.”A lot of individuals were involved,” he said. “It was a confrontation with more than just one or two people.”The brawl also injured one of the suspects, a 16-year-old male, who received a minor stab wound to the forehead, according to police.The 16-year-old and Israel Munguia, 17, of Chelsea, were both arrested a short time after the fight on Astor Street for violating the city’s knife ordinance.Witnesses told responding officers that some of the people involved in the fight had a large knife and were walking toward Astor Street, where police later saw a group of teens in the driveway of 27 Astor St., police said.Officers Al DiVirgilio and Thomas Holland found a group of people, including the two suspects, inside a common hallway where Munguia was covered in blood on his clothes and hands, police said. The 16-year-old was later found hiding under a blanket.As police tried to calm the situation near Lynn Tech, other officers responded outside the Hood Elementary School on a report of an unrelated fight involving knives. Members of the LPD Gang Unit responded and later arrested Minroy Sok, 18, of 526 Summer St., Lynn and a 16-year-old male juvenile from Lynn and charged them with violating the city’s knife ordinance.The fight reportedly occurred just outside the school near the intersection of Oakwood Avenue and Webster Street.On Thursday, a 13-year-old boy was arrested around 2 p.m. after he allegedly brought a knife into the Pickering Middle School on Conomo Avenue, where he is a student. The boy was charged with violating the city’s knife ordinance and being in possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds.Since the melee unfolded outside Lynn Tech, the Gang Unit and patrolmen have been increasing their presence in and around the city’s public schools, according Lt. Brown.”They know the different individuals and what gangs they’re associated with,” Brown said. “They know the players.”The unit’s heightened presence has already resulted in an arrest of one suspected gang member who was found holding a loaded illegal handgun on Vine Street at about 3 p.m. Thursday.Lynn police and the North Shore Gang Task Force, which includes members of the FBI, ATF and State Police, were patrolling Neptune Boulevard when they noticed a vehicle driven by a suspected gang member.”The officer knows him to be involved with a specific gang,” Brown said.The vehicle’s front seat passenger, Carlos Lopez, 18, of 24 Hanover St. #2, Lynn, was later arrested and charged with carrying a firearm without a license, carrying a loaded firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. Police found the weapon while conducting a pat frisk after Lopez was asked to step out of the vehicle, police said.Plain-clothes officers approached the car after it stopped outside 36 Vine St. Two people came downstairs to greet the people in the car, but apparently got scared when they noticed police outside.”When they saw the officers they immediately turned around and ran back up the stairs to a third floor apartment,” Brown said.About a dozen police cars parked outside the home, at the corner of Warren Street, as they investigated the incident on Thursday afternoon.Brown said that in addition to the Gang Unit, the department’s Juvenile Unit, patrolmen and Lynn Tech’s School Resource Police Officer, Je