Mother IDs victim of fatal barbershop shooting in Dorchester

One man was killed and another wounded in a midday shooting inside a Dorchester barbershop on Labor Day.

A man who was shot and killed inside a Dorchester barbershop on Labor Day has reportedly been identified by his mother.

The victim, Elijah Clunie, would have turned 21 on Saturday, The Boston Globe reported. The woman declined to be identified but told a Globe reporter that she only wanted the violence to stop.

“Tell everybody to quit fighting and killing each other and to have more peace,” she told the paper.

Boston police responded to a barbershop near the intersection of Eerie and Washington streets just before 1 p.m. on Monday. Two adult men were found suffering gunshot wounds. Both were transported to local hospitals, where one was pronounced dead, officials said.

Authorities have not publicly identified the victim. They said Monday that this was likely not a random event.

Clunie was also identified as the victim in reporting from WCVB. He was shot at Exclusive Barber Shop, located at 184 Washington St.

The grandfather of the surviving victim told the Globe that his grandson was shot in the leg, chest, and side of the head. Officials described his injuries as nonlife-threatening.

A suspect has not been identified. A resident of a nearby Dorchester home told the Globe that he heard gunshots and saw people running out of the barbershop, including a man with a gun dressed in all black. The resident reportedly spoke to the shop’s owner and learned that the suspect entered the shop, asked how many customers were there, left, and returned a short time later before opening fire.

Video that circulated on social media apparently showed the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One man could be seen gesturing to his bloody face while sitting on the floor. Another could be seen slumped lifelessly in a barber’s chair with a wound to his head and a pool of blood by his feet.

Clunie was reportedly a former student and basketball player at TechBoston Academy. As a senior in 2022, Clunie was named player of the game after a TechBoston win in the MIAA State Tournament. He was interviewed, and a video was posted to the City of Boston’s official YouTube page. He encouraged his teammates to ramp up their defensive intensity and to play without selfishness.

A “senior presentation” dated June 3, 2022, was uploaded by a user with Clunie’s name to the website Prezi. In the presentation, he wrote about how attending TechBoston “changed” him for the better and how he learned to respect others there.

Clunie also said in the presentation that he moved from Lowell to Boston and feared for his life.

“In all honesty, when I first moved to the Dorchester area I thought I was going to die. I thought this because before I moved to Boston, the only thing you would hear about it, is the killings on the news everyday,” he apparently wrote.

Anyone with information or video of the shooting is being urged to contact the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470.