On 01/13/18 around 4:30 p.m., members of the Somerville Police Narcotics Unit were conducting surveillance in multiple unmarked vehicles in the general area of East Somerville.  While traveling Westbound on Pearl St, I noticed a small group of individuals consisting of XXXXX, Samip Sharma, and Shaheim Grant hanging in front of the XXXXXX Market.  I would like to note that these individuals are very well known to the Somerville Police Narcotics & Gang Unit due to frequent encounters involving distribution offenses, shootings and illegal gun possessions that resulted in prior arrests.  As a result of this observation, Detectives Cicerone, Costa, Goncalves, McNally, and I decided to monitor their movements as they kept going in and out of the market.

Around 5:15 p.m., I noticed Mr. Grant stepping out of the store. He was constantly monitoring his phone as he appeared to be communicating with someone via text messages and brief phone calls.  Mr. Grants body language appeared consistent with someone awaiting the arrival of another person, as he repeatedly paced back and forth while looking in all directions on Pearl Street and Walnut Street.  Shortly after,  observation of a dark gray motor vehicle bearing MA Reg # XXXX occupied by three individuals was made as the operator parked on Walnut Street, less than 100 feet away from the Market.  As soon as the vehicle parked, we observed Mr. Grant running toward the vehicle and entering it through the rear right passenger door.  Within twenty seconds, I observed Mr. Grant exiting the vehicle and walking back toward the Market as the vehicle travelled north on Walnut Street.  At this time, based on my training, experience, surveillance observations, recent FIO conducted by Detectives Capasso and Slattery (refer to report # 1700359), complaints from Market owner and knowledge of this area to be a narcotics hot spot, I believed this quick meet to be consistent with how street level narcotics transactions are sometimes conducted.   As a result, Detective Cicerone and I decided to intercept Mr. Grant to conduct a threshold inquiry as detectives Costa, Goncalves, and McNally continued a rolling surveillance of the vehicle.

As we approached Mr. Grant, we displayed our badges and immediately identified ourselves as Somerville Police.  Mr. Grant appeared surprised and whispered “oh shit.”  I asked Mr. Grant where he was coming from to which he replied “I was just getting dropped off by my friend”.   When asked for his friend’s name, Mr. Grant couldn’t tell us.  He offered a series of evasive answers unrelated to my question.  I informed him that he was being untruthful because we had been watching him and his friends for almost an hour.  During this interaction, we could smell a strong odor of fresh, un-burnt marijuana emanating from his clothes.  As we continued to ask for his friend’s name, Mr. Grant became agitated and said “Big deal I sell a lil bud there are people raping and killing people out there – why don’t you go after them?”  Detective Cicerone conducted a pat frisk of Mr. Grant.  In his front right sweatshirt pocket, Detective Cicerone felt a plastic bag containing some grainy substance.  Mr. Grant claimed that the object Detective Cicerone felt was weed. He also claimed that he had a digital scale and $25 in the left pocket of his sweatshirt and about $500 in his pants pocket. The digital scale found on Mr. Grant is consistent with the type commonly found on street level narcotics dealers  to weight drugs. At that moment, I called for a marked unit to assist the other detectives in an attempt to stop the vehicle. With the assistance of marked unit East 4 operated by Officer Ramirez, Detectives Costa, Goncalves and McNally eventually stopped the car at Temple Street and Mystic Avenue.

During that motor vehicle stop, the driver stated to Detective Costa that he was coming from work and that he did not meet with anyone and no one else other than his current passengers had gotten in the car.  We know this to be untrue because Detective Cicerone and I had an unobstructed view of the car when Mr. Grant entered it through the rear passenger door.  As Detective Costa interacted with the driver, Detective McNally noticed that the front seat passenger later identified as Mr. Roberto Portillo grew increasingly more nervous.  Base on that interaction, an exit order was given and on that gentleman a firearm was discovered.  At that moment, the driver spontaneously uttered “Fuck man, we just came to get some weed”.  From the operator, a small amount of weed was recovered.  The amount of weed found is consistent with the $25 recovered from Mr. Grant’s pocket.  Detective McNally will write a more detailed supplemental report about this interaction. Please refer to his report  #18002839-2.

Mr. Grant and Mr. Portillo were subsequently placed under arrest and transported to the Somerville Police Department to be booked by Lt. Rymill.  All other parties involved/present during this incident were FIO’d.

Respectfully submitted,

Detective Guerdy Legros #280

Somerville Police Dept.