Location

Boston Police report arresting Amanyeh Matra, 20, of Dorchester, on charges of trying to gun down a man on Hamilton Street in Dorchester Monday evening:

According to witnesses, the suspect approached the victim, pulled out a firearm and began shooting.

Despite being shot repeatedly, the victim is recovering at Brigham and Women's Hospital, police say. Matra was arrested yesterday on charges of assault with intent to murder and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

In 2000, Matra, then a sixth-grader at the Frank V. Thompson Middle School in Dorchester, wrote a winning essay for the Max Warburg Challenge Curriculum, a citywide program honoring the memory of a Boston sixth grader who died in 1991. In his essay, Matra wrote about what he did when he was 8 1/2 and saw two older girls picking on a little first grader and making her cry:

... Suddenly, I felt a big bag of courage open up inside of me. I ran over and told them to leave her alone. They refused. I told them that if they didn't leave her alone, I would tell their mothers.

The older girls finally apologized to the first-grader because they didn't want to get into trouble. The little girl thanked me. Later she and I became friends. I found out that her name was Christal, and that the two older girls were bothering her because they didn't like her older sister Jasmine.

I felt good about myself for helping Christal. I risked getting beat up to help her from getting hurt. ...

Complete essay (requires fee or a Globe subscription).

Innocent, etc.