Crime

“It is troubling, it is troubling that that can occur, and the lack of accountability around that,” Cox said Sunday.

By Abby Patkin

May 18, 2026 | 3:22 PM

2 minutes to read

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Addressing last week’s shooting across the river on Memorial Drive, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox expressed his frustration with the lenient prison sentence previously handed down to alleged Cambridge gunman Tyler Brown. 

Appearing on WCVB’s “On The Record” Sunday, Cox argued the sentence Brown received for shooting at police officers in the South End in 2020 fell short of accountability. Suffolk County prosecutors on that case had asked for a state prison sentence of 10 to 12 years, but now-retired Judge Janet L. Sanders gave Brown just five to six years, with credit for time served. 

“It doesn’t seem like the sentence matches the seriousness of the offense in any way, shape, or form,” Cox said Sunday. “And so now the person comes out and almost does the exact same thing with a bigger gun and more bullets. It is troubling, it is troubling that that can occur, and the lack of accountability around that.”

On May 11, nearly six years to the day after the South End shooting, prosecutors say Brown, now 46, armed himself with an “assault-style rifle” and began firing erratically. He allegedly shot two men as they sat in their respective vehicles, causing life-threatening injuries before he himself was wounded in a shootout with a Massachusetts State Police trooper and an armed civilian.

Brown pleaded not guilty last week to assault and firearms charges.

Cox, who described the shooting as a “nightmare for the community,” did not take the reins at the Boston Police Department until after Brown was sentenced for the 2020 South End shooting. Asked whether he faults Sanders or the parole board for Brown’s alleged actions, he stopped short of open criticism. 

“My job is not to criticize other people in their roles,” he said, explaining he doesn’t know all the factors that go into sentencing or parole decisions. “But clearly this person was ready, willing, and able to offend again, and it didn’t really take long.”

Larry Calderone, the president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, had sharper words: “This boils down to the DAs and the judges,” he told WBZ. “They need to do a better job.”

Cox, who said he’s been shot at before, acknowledged the trauma police officers experience after facing gunfire on the job, particularly when a suspect accused of violent crime is later released. 

“When you work hard for the public, to serve the public, and try to hold people accountable for threats … involving the public, and then a person like that is either let out or not charged or dismissed, it is disheartening,” Cox explained. “Because you feel as though, ‘I’m putting my life on the line, for what?’”