Slurs led to knife brawl

CHELSEA – As two Revere firefighters lay hospitalized Monday, a defense attorney spoke of chaos that arose from racial slurs allegedly shouted by the firefighters before they were brutally stabbed outside Club Caravan in Revere just after midnight Saturday morning.Jakeem C. Gonsalves, 29, of 350 Third St., Cambridge, was arraigned in Chelsea District Court on a single charge of aggravated assault and battery for his involvement in the brawl that led to the stabbings.Gonsalves was released from jail Saturday after his mother posted $10,000 cash bail. She and other family members accompanied him to court as Judge Timothy Gailey denied the prosecution’s request to increase the bail amount.Prosecutors say Revere firefighters Kenneth McDonald, 44 and Joseph Laurano, 41, were brutally stabbed during an argument over a parking space outside of the North Shore Road nightclub.The men were in a vehicle that just pulled into a spot when an SUV rolled behind them and blocked them in, prosecutors said.Both the prosecution and defense say words were exchanged over the parking space and a large number of people began to fight.Defense attorney Barry Wilson in open court said that Gonsalves, who is black, was caught in the middle of a bad situation started by the firefighters when they spouted racial slurs at the men for trying to take their parking spot.”Two firefighters, about 6-foot-2 (or) 6-foot-3, with arms as big as my legs, said very horrible things like the N-word and things like that,” Wilson said.After two groups began fighting the firefighters, one group included several men, only identified as black males, who allegedly stabbed the two firefighters multiple times before fleeing in the SUV. State Police homicide detectives were called because emergency personnel weren’t sure if the men would survive.”Witnesses identified Gonsalves as taking part in beating one of the victims, but not taking part in the stabbing of two victims that followed the fisticuffs,” said Jake Wark, spokesman the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in a statement.A third victim, identified as Dennis Petrosino, 42, suffered broken facial bones in the fight, according to Revere police spokesman Capt. Michael Murphy. Petrosino, a former Revere resident, had just arrived at Club Caravan to meet up with the firefighters, his friends, when the fight broke out, police said.McDonald was injured the most seriously after suffering “multiple, serious stab wounds” to his chest, stomach and back causing extensive internal bleeding, Capt. Murphy said.”McDonald, I will anticipate, will be in the hospital for quite some time,” Murphy said by phone Monday.Laurano was “badly beaten and stomped and stabbed” but could leave the hospital in the near future, Murphy said.Moments after police arrived at the scene, other officers stopped a car that Petrosino identified as carrying people who were involved in the attack.Police questioned the men from the vehicle – including Gonsalves – in the Stop and Shop parking lot across the street from Club Caravan. Petrosino positively identified Gonsalves as being involved in the fight, but not the other three men in the vehicle, prosecutors said.During a search of the stopped vehicle, police located a brown handled knife and two folding knives in the front seat area of the vehicle, prosecutors said.There were also two bloody t-shirts in the automobile and Gonsalves was shirtless and covered in blood when he was arrested, according to prosecutors.In court, Gonsalves stood before Judge Timothy Gailey as his right eye was completely full of red color and swelling around his eye socket.”My client has no idea what happened and didn’t want any part of this,” attorney Wilson said.McDonald was one of three people arrested in April 1999 for attacking a WHDH-TV Channel 7 news crew outside Fenway Park on Opening Day.Judge Gailey agreed with the defense to allow Gonsalves to remain free on the bail his mother posted, but granted the prosecution’s req