Woman says Boston Police shot through closed apartment door into son’s bedroom: “I thought I was going to die”
By Cheryl Fiandaca
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BOSTON, Massachusetts (WBZ) — The WBZ I-Team uncovered a police shooting that could have ended in tragedy. Boston Police officers opened fire through a closed apartment door, the bullets going into the wall of a five-year old’s bedroom. The woman says she was home alone and says she and her son could have been killed.
The 25-year-old did not want to be identified. “I thought I was going to die,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”
Woman said she heard 4 or 5 gunshots
On February 14, 2026, she was in her Dorchester apartment alone folding clothes. At around 10 p.m. she heard banging on the door. The woman says, “I tried to look through the peephole, but it was blocked. So, I opened the door, and I saw five to six police officers, so I closed it again, I got scared and I locked it.”
Moments later, she heard gunshots and immediately thought she got shot. She told the I-Team she heard four or five shots, showing the holes in the wall and the door.
Boston Police officers fired several shots through the closed apartment door. The bullets went through the wall and into her son’s bedroom. The woman says, one of the bullets “hit the left window and the window shattered.” Showing the I-Team where her son’s TV usually is and his bed. She said, if he had been home, “he would have been dead.”
Todd McGhee is a former Massachusetts State Trooper and a security expert. He says there would be no reason to shoot through a closed door. “There is no reason to arbitrarily shoot through a door not knowing what’s fully on the other side like a 5-year-old or other occupants, does seem to some level of negligence,” McGhee said. “Law enforcement just doesn’t just show up at a residence and then start putting holes in the doors with bullets. That is absurd to me.”
“They pinned me down”
The woman said after the police shot though her door they broke it down. “I ran into my room, and they pinned me down they tased me. They said they were just doing a check, like a wellness check. I don’t know for who but I was alone… I was no threat to them I was no threat to them.”
She said after police tased her; she was taken to the hospital.
“If they were trying to bring her under arrest and there was a level of resistance, then using the Taser would have been the right level of force. Not firearms, not deploying lethal force,” McGhee said. “We need more information. I have never heard of anything like this.”
Dorchester police shooting under investigation
Boston Police told the I-Team the shooting is under investigation and refused our request for the body camera video. The department did provide a copy of the incident report that says police heard someone screaming in the apartment and were met at the door by a woman who had a knife. The report says she refused to drop the knife and that’s when officers discharged their firearms. It also says after the shooting she continued to refuse to drop the knife, and officers then used their Taser.
The woman denied having any kind of weapon, gun or knife.
The report makes no mention of shooting through the closed door or breaking it down to get inside, nor does it list a knife as evidence.
Days after the shooting, detectives came back to the apartment to dig the bullets out of the wall. The woman says detectives did want to talk to her, but she wants to speak to a lawyer first, calling the experience scary and a little sad since if her son had been home, she says he would have been killed.
She was not arrested or charged with any crime. Boston Police say the officers involved in the shooting are on administrative duty.
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