Man Charged in May Memorial Drive Shooting Indicted on 43 New Charges

The man charged with firing more than 70 rounds into traffic on Memorial Drive in May will be arraigned on a new slate of 43 charges — including six counts of armed assault to murder — in the Middlesex Superior Court on Thursday, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.

Tyler E. Brown, a 46-year-old from Boston, previously faced eight charges related to the shooting in the Cambridge District Court, including two counts of assault to murder with a firearm and two counts of attempted assault and battery with a firearm. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on May 14.

Brown appeared for his first court hearings from his hospital bed days after the shooting, recovering after being shot by Massachusetts State Police and an armed bystander. He has made few court appearances since May, with Thursday’s arraignment marking his first scheduled hearing in nearly two months.

The new litany of charges filed in the Superior Court marks a substantial escalation in the proceedings, after months of little movement on the docket. A Middlesex grand jury indicted Brown on Aug. 25, allowing the case to be heard in the Superior Court and opening the possibility for a far longer sentence if he is convicted.

Most cases tried in Massachusetts district courts carry a maximum sentence of two and a half years in jail per charge — substantially lower than the 20-year maximum for armed assault to murder.

Brown opened fire near the intersection of River Street and Memorial Drive — less than a mile from Harvard’s campus — with a semi-automatic assault rifle on May 11. Brown shot sporadically in the air and at traffic, while people fled on foot and by car as he walked down Memorial Drive.

Minutes after the first shots rang out, he exchanged gunfire with an MSP officer and was shot in his “lower extremities.” He continued to shoot at police and an armed bystander after being shot, until he was eventually subdued and arrested.

At the time of the shooting, Brown was on parole after recently finishing a five-year prison sentence for shooting at two Boston Police officers in 2020. Brown had also been released from a psychiatric hospital three days before the Memorial Drive shooting.

Brown repeatedly contacted his parole officer on the day of the shooting, according to a police report. The parole officer stated that Brown told him he had begun using drugs again, brandished the assault rifle on a video call, made suicidal statements, and said he was “now repping his ‘shooter name.’”

Both individuals who were injured in the shooting were released from the hospital in the days after the shooting.

Brown’s 43 new charges also include two counts of assault and battery by discharging a firearm, six counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60, seven counts of malicious damage to a motor vehicle, and charges relating to illegal possession of a firearm and large-capacity magazine.

Brown is set to be arraigned Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at the Middlesex Superior Court.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.