Lure of street may have proven too much for JP man

By adamg - 7/16/09 - 2:48 pm

A Jamaica Plain man who told an audience of teens two years ago he was struggling to overcome a lifetime of crime was arrested last night on a variety of charges, including unlawful possession of a high-powered automatic rifle.

Boston Police report arresting Giovanni Carrasquillo, 22, at 10 Bickford St. around 9:30 p.m. yesterday. Officers had gone there to arrest him on outstanding warrants from Dorchester District court for threats to commit a crime and various motor-vehicle offenses, but once inside, they say they found "a large capacity rifle and numerous rounds of ammunition." After obtaining a warrant to search the apartment, they say they found, in addition to the rifle, "in excess of four-hundred rounds of ammunition, four large capacity feeding devices (magazines) and two digital scales, with what appeared to be, drug residue on them."

Carrasquillo was charged with unlawful possession of a large capacity firearm, unlawful possession of large capacity feeding devices (four counts) and unlawful possession of ammunition.

In an August, 2007 speech before 350 people at Roxbury Community College, Carrasquillo spoke of growing up in the Heath Street projects and watching his diabetic mother come down with cancer and AIDS when he was just 7:

When I was 10, I saw that a lot of people made money selling drugs so it seemed like a good thing for me to do. When I was 12 years old, because I was dealing, we got evicted.

And he talked of how difficult it was to turn his life around, because his criminal past made it difficult to get a job - and because he was bitter at a society he said provided no help to his family.

Boston Police say they seized this gun, magazines and ammo from Carrasquillo.

Innocent, etc.