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‘He led a double life’: Ex-BPS Dean who lured students into Latin Kings gang sentenced to 18 years

BOSTON — An ex-Latin Kings member who was also an academic dean for Boston Public Schools at the time will face over a decade in prison on racketeering charges; this coming years after recruiting students into joining the gang, selling drugs, and even attempting to murder a student, officials say.

63-year-old Shaun Harrison, aka “Rev”, was sentenced to 218 months in prison on Thursday, with credit for 98 months time served, and three years supervised release in federal court, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He pleaded guilty to RICO charges back in August 2022, but was convicted in state court in 2018 for assault after shooting a student in the back of the head over an argument over declining drug sales.

“The level of betrayal and dishonesty exhibited here is astonishing,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said. “Harrison was the architect of ruin for an entire generation of promising young lives – exclusively targeting and grooming vulnerable, at-risk youth. The very thing he was hired to work against.”

Harrison worked at The English High School starting in 2015. His role, according to officials, was to act as a mediator between teachers and students, contact families when students struggled, work with at-risk students, and run an anger management program for 10 boys after school. Using this influence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says he recruited numerous teens to join the Latin Kings and sell drugs for him at the school.

In March of that year, he shot a student in the back of the head after he believed the student stole money from him and was threatening to tell the cops about his criminal activity.

The 17-year-old student miraculously survived his injuries.

“Shaun Harrison led a double life – using his position as a high school dean to engage in violence and recruit at-risk youth into a violent criminal enterprise,” Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division said. “The convergence of gangs, guns, and drugs are a serious threat to our communities which the FBI and our law enforcement partners are working hard every day to address.”

The Latin Kings are a violent criminal enterprise compromised of thousands of members across the United States who sell drugs to generate revenue and engage in acts of violence against witnesses and rival gangs.

For more information about the DOJ’s efforts to combat gang violence, click here.

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