Driver Hits Two Bicyclists, Killing One, on Mass. Ave. in Arlington
On Tuesday evening, a driver killed one bicyclist and sent another to the hospital in a crash on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington.
According to a statement from the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, Arlington Police responded to the crash around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday evening near the intersection of Appleton Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington Heights.
There, police found two injured bicyclists: an unidentified 32-year-old female and Charles Proctor, 27, of Somerville.
The female victim was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries, but Proctor later died of injuries he sustained in the crash.
The suspect in the killing, a 20-year-old Cambridge man, remained on the scene with two other passengers who were with him in the car.
Police reported that the two victims were riding east, while the suspect was driving west at the time of the crash.
The crash site is a complicated, signalized junction where two side streets – Appleton Street and Appleton Place – merge with Massachusetts Avenue at sharp angles.
In a bizarre twist, police decided at the scene that the driver will face charges, but not – for the time being – for homicide.
That’s because police discovered a loaded shotgun in the trunk of the perpetrator’s vehicle, in violation of state gun laws. Prosecutors will summons him to Cambridge District Court to face that charge at a later date.
The crash remains under investigation, and the driver may yet face more serious charges.
In the meantime, he remains licensed to drive both of his deadly weapons around the city as he pleases.
