Violent Repeat Offender Left Psych Ward Days Before Allegedly Shooting Up Busy Massachusetts Street

The suspect charged with randomly shooting people on a Massachusetts street on Monday was in a psychiatric facility three days prior, court records say.

Tyler Brown’s parole officer learned he was using drugs and acting strangely after being released from McLean Hospital in Belmont on Friday, a Massachusetts state trooper wrote in a Tuesday complaint. Brown is now accused of firing a rifle indiscriminately at drivers in Cambridge on Monday, hospitalizing two people.

Brown is a repeat offender with violent convictions dating back to at least 2014, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. He received a five-to-six-year sentence that was lighter than prosecutors’ recommendations in a 2020 case after shooting at Boston police. Officers noted that he appeared “emotionally disturbed” in that incident as well, former Democratic Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ office said.

The hospital did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Massachusetts’ court database does not yet list further case information for Brown. He is charged with armed assault with intent to murder, carrying a gun without a license, assault and battery with a firearm and illegally possessing a large-capacity firearm, the complaint shows.

A co-resident at Brown’s home “told the parole officer to meet with Brown because ‘he’s off his rocker’ and had been getting high all night before,” the state trooper wrote. The parole officer also allegedly received a Facetime video call from Brown in which he was “waving around a semi-automatic rifle” in someone’s kitchen and saying “these people are gonna fucking pay” and “I’m not going back to prison.”