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Gun recovered, two facing charges in 'moving gun battle' in Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Police say an additional person has been arrested after a daytime shooting in Cambridge Thursday.

Police were notified of gunshots in the area of Chestnut and Sidney Street in Cambridge Thursday afternoon. Police say a vehicle reportedly fled the area.

"It sounded to me like shots," neighbor Fred Woods said. "Maybe it was someone banging on something, that was my initial thought. But no idea which direction it was coming from or anything else, so I didn’t think anything of it."

A 20-year-old Roslindale man, Ladjuan Guichard, was taken into custody Thursday in the area of Land Boulevard and Binney Street as police recovered a firearm. Guichard is facing charges of discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building and carrying a firearm without a license.

Cambridge Police said Friday morning that the passenger in Guichard's car, Joekeem Nelson, 23, of Cambridge, who was taken to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries, was also arrested. Nelson will be arraigned on charges that include armed assault to murder, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and failure to stop for police, when he's released from the hospital.

Both were ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing.

Cambridge Police say that one man sustained what are believed to be non-life threatening injuries.

The commissioner called the incident a "moving gun battle" between two parties in separate cars that erupted on Chestnut Street around 2:30 p.m.

"It's disturbing," Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville Bard, Jr. said. "I mean, it rips at your feelings of safety. You know, broad daylight. Middle of the afternoon. On a school day. When you got folks brazen enough to discharge weapons in the middle of the highway. It’s disturbing."

Police say the shooters were in separate cars, and the incident started with about seven shots fired.

Two parked cars were damaged in the chaos before the battle moved to Central Square, where another five shots were fired.

"It’s very scary," Crystal Ventura, who works nearby and had her car damaged, said. "The front is completely damaged and there is just a little bit of blood in the front."

The cars were then fleeing as an off-duty Cambridge Police officer witnessed part of the incident and radioed it in.

Police quickly took Guichard into custody, with one person suffering a minor gunshot wound to the top of the head.

The search is continuing for the other suspect or suspects in the second car with the second gun.

"I work here every day," Ventura said. "There’s kids right there. I’m just very grateful we weren’t outside, and I wasn’t in my car."

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