In the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016, a party in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston turned deadly for 26-year-old Chaz Burton, a Black male from Lynn. The night began with a verbal dispute inside a residence on River Street, which soon spilled outside and escalated with tragic consequences.
Once outside, Chaz and his acquaintances were met by a group, and a physical altercation broke out.
The brawl intensified as some individuals reportedly armed themselves with wooden stakes pulled from the ground. In the midst of the chaos, Chaz was shot twice in the torso and was pronounced dead at the scene when police responded to a call about a stabbing at approximately 2:10 a.m. Another man in his 20s was found at the scene with a non-life-threatening stab wound and was transported to a local hospital.
In the months that followed, an investigation led to several arrests and indictments. Three men were charged with murder in connection with Chaz Burton's death: Benjamin Tate, 23, of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury; Abdullah Yasin, 23, of Jamaica Plain; and Fabian Llano, 26, of Lynn. While Tate and Yasin were arraigned and held without bail, Llano remained at large at the time the charges were announced. Additionally, six other individuals, including some of Tate's relatives, faced various charges, such as assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and misleading investigators, for their roles in the fatal fight.
