CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Tyler Brown has been identified as the man who allegedly started shooting a rifle at random along Memorial Drive in Cambridge on Monday.
According to court paperwork and audio, he has a criminal history, riddled with violence against both police officers and innocent bystanders.
Audio from his court appearance following an incident on May 16th of 2020, when Brown shot at officers in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon, police pleaded with Judge Janet Sanders to give Brown a harsher sentence.
“Mr. Tyler Brown could care less if innocent people get hurt and he showed that, that day by firing approximately 17 rounds indiscriminately at 2:13 on a Saturday afternoon. I’m a firm believer if Mr. Tyler brown gets out he will hurt or worse kill someone because he has shown us how well he has done while he was out on probation for a stabbing. Probation apparently means nothing to Tyler Brown nor does the value of life,” one officer told the judge.
He said a lesser sentence would be dangerous.
“It just tells Mr. Brown you can try to kill four cops and endanger the public it’s no big deal, all you have to do is your time for your probation violation. it’s a slap in the face to the taxpayers of the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” he said.
The probation officer in court agreed with the officer’s statement.
“Probation believes that Mr. Brown is a danger to the community due to his random acts of violence toward strangers and shooting multiple rounds at police officers he has an 8-page Massachusetts record,” she said.
The probation officer also revealed he had criminal records in other states as well and was no longer a candidate for probation.
When Judge Sanders sifted through the details of Brown’s childhood of abuse and neglect, psychiatric issues, the network of support of family and friends he seemed to have, and several letters of support volunteering to help him, she became openly conflicted in court.
“I also think while its certainly incredibly serious to be shooting at a police officer there is a difference between shooting at a police officer and shooting a police officer and the reality is nobody was injured I do think he was out there wildly shooting,” Judge Sanders said in court.
She also flagged his intellectual potential, willingness to change, and his fight to keep in communication with his children.
Ultimately deciding 10 to 12 years was too long and said it would be “over for him,” leaving him with little hope to change.
Instead, she pushed for 5 to 6 years plus probation.
“You know Mr. Brown, I do realize I’m kind of taking a chance on you and you know when people stand up, experienced police officers, experienced probation officers and they tell me this guy is a danger to the community then, um, then I hear that, and I can’t look into a crystal ball and figure out what’s going to happen once you get out but I do understand I am taking a risk here and I just pray that, you know, my intuitions are right, and that you have the ability, the smarts, the will, the support, not to go out there and endanger other peoples’ lives as you have in the past,” the judge said in court.
Brown was later released early.
Stacey Borden, the founder and director of New Beginnings/Reentry Services, knows Brown and wrote one of his support letters to the judge.
“I was heartbroken and I know that he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, I believe he was trying to get himself shot by the police,” she said.
Almost six years to the day since Brown’s last armed public outburst and just days after the incident on Memorial Drive, Sanders would only speak with Boston 25 news through her front door.
“I’m not going to comment. I have no memory of this case,” she said.
But Borden does remember. She says Judge Sanders understood the struggles of the black and brown community, mental illness, poverty and believed in Brown and knew he was capable of great things.
Borden says Brown excelled in the classroom setting at Tufts and doing well before this mental break. Adding she’s been in contact with his classmates, and they are equally as stunned.
She stands by the judge’s original decision to give Brown another chance and said she hopes Brown gets the same grace from a judge this time around.
“...that’s all we do send him away he should be put away for life, no! He needs help! He needs to heal,” she said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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