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Murder victim identified, had 15-month-old daughter

Gomes and daughter
From her MySpace page.

UPDATE: Man arrested, charged with her murder.

The Metro identifies the dead woman as Alexandra Gomes, 19, of Dorchester. Her friends knew her as Xanda. She and four other people were raked with gunfire early this morning on Elder Street.

On her MySpace page, her friends expressed shock and promised to watch over her baby, Niylah:

i cant believe this is real it feels like a dream.. i wish i was being punked.. i remember our fun lil sleepovas when we were younger and ur mom made cucumbers and sugar..lol we miss you all and watch over us everyday... i love you so much.. and we'll take care of niylah for you.. you don't deserve this one bit... but we love you so mcuh... i cant believe it.. i wish there was a way for you to come back ...turn back time or something.. we love youuuu
rest easy xandaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

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Comments

Five people were blasted in Dorchester this morning, in the same Cape Verdean community just getting over a decade of murderous violence, and as of 10:40 p.m., boston.com doesn't have a single word about the incident, as far as I can tell (somebody correct me if I'm just blind).

The Herald has the same basic police press-release rewrite that I posted this morning, except they're still identifying the incident as happening in Roxbury, probably because the BPD press release mentions that "officers from Area B-2 (Roxbury)" responded; I made the same initial mistake, but corrected it after looking at a map.

Channel 4 has done a good job updating its story (and I think they were the first to report it).

Channel 5 identified the dead woman. Channel 25 and Channel 7 both also have stories.

Surprisingly, at least to me, the Metro actually has the most complete story so far on the incident, complete with a photo of the poor woman's grieving grandparents.

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a 20 minute walk from the scene of this crime.

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My friends who know my past life as a journalist are shocked when I refuse to pick on the Metro... it's got something going that the other papers don't... can't quite ID the secret ingredient, and i wouldn't say it's any kind of benchmark of journalistic goodness, but where i see the Globe (for YEARS) rewriting press releases and running AP stories about Boston news, I see the Metro sending someone to the scene to write a fresh story.

That's how I was taught to "do journalism".

I'm further interested in the relative nonchalance with which stories of this nature are picked up, carried, and then forgotten.

Perhaps the lesson there is that any incident, however troubling, can be tamped down to the safe, cartoon version of itself through the judicious application of mundane-sounding press releases.

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