The 13-year Boston police veteran shot while responding to a domestic dispute yesterday is a tough-as-nails martial arts expert who once earned a department medal for putting a suspect in a headlock while lying on the ground with broken bones in his ankle, a friend and police sources told the Herald.
Boston Police Officer Shawn Marando, 46, was in stable condition last night after undergoing surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to control bleeding from being shot in the leg shortly after 7 a.m. outside 22 Dunbar Ave. in Dorchester, police Commissioner Edward Davis said.
“He’s doing well,” department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said last night.
Marando, a former member of the Air Force and Marine Reserves, had designed a form of martial arts called “Copkido” intended to help cops protect themselves from violent suspects using minimal force and was planning to hold a training camp in New Hampshire next month, said Aaron Spagnolo, a friend.
“He was trying to use it as a solution to help police officers do their job and get hurt less,” said Spagnolo, who told the Herald Marando also taught martial arts to Boston hospital ER staff.
Marando received the department’s medal of honor after being attacked trying to perform CPR on a shooting victim in Hyde Park in 2004, according to Boston police.
After Marando lost his balance and fell during the scuffle, the suspect jumped on top of him and started punching him in the face, police said.
Marando managed to put the suspect in a headlock, then discovered his left ankle “hanging in a 45-degree angle caused by broken bones sustained in this attack,” police said. Despite excruciating pain, Marando managed to hold on to the suspect until backup arrived, police said.
Yesterday, Marando and two other officers were responding to a 911 call from a woman reporting that her boyfriend, Tyrone Cummings, 25, had assaulted her and was threatening to kill her, the commissioner said.
When the officers arrived, Cummings was outside with a woman believed to be the victim’s sister and allegedly opened fire on them, hitting Marando, Davis said. Marando and another officer, whose name was not released, fired back, hitting Cummings “multiple times,” Davis said.
The suspect was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, police said. The woman was shot in the leg and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, police said. She was also in stable condition.
Police and the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office are investigating the shooting, including who shot the woman, Davis said. One of the shots also hit the nearby Emily A. Fifield Elementary School, he said, but it was closed at the time.
Cummings is known to police and is expected to be arraigned from his hospital bed today on charges of assault with intent to murder and weapons charges, police said. Two guns and a bag of ammunition were found on him outside the triple-decker, where police had been called previously, Davis said.
“We know he brought two illegal firearms and a bag full of bullets,” District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said. “The officers appear to have acted in self-defense. There is no question Mr. Cummings initiated (the) gunfight.”