BOSTON — A Boston career criminal who converted his handgun into an illegal machine gun and unleashed a hail of bullets across a Dorchester street during the city's Caribbean Carnival — wounding eight, including an 11-year-old child — was sentenced Thursday to life in prison after sliding out of his GPS monitor and going on the lam to Georgia for six months.

Gerald Vick Jr., 33, of Dorchester, was hauled before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Sarah Ellis after a two-jury verdict found him guilty on a stack of firearms charges that include carrying a firearm without a license — second offense — carrying a loaded firearm without a license, possession of a large capacity feeding device, and possession of a machine gun.

As a habitual offender, the conviction triggered a mandatory life sentence. Vick will be eligible for parole in 15 years.

The carnage unfolded in the pre-dawn hours of August 26, 2023, on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester — between the Boys and Girls Club parking lot and the Always Open Towing yard — as the J'Ouvert parade was passing nearby in celebration of Boston's beloved Caribbean Carnival.

Boston police officers on patrol watched two rival groups of men gather on opposite sides of the street, staring intently at each other and pointing. Vick stood at the back of his crew in the Boys and Girls Club lot — then strode to the front in what investigators described as a show of force.

Across the street, near Always Open Towing, stood his rival group. One of them — co-defendant Dwayne Francis — was yelling into a phone while clutching something inside the pouch of his hoodie.

Then the shooting erupted. Hundreds of carnival-goers ran screaming for cover. Eight people went down, every single one of them on the Always Open Towing side of the street — including an 11-year-old child. Miraculously, none of them died.

Vick had armed himself with a pistol fitted with a sinister "sear switch" device — a black-market gadget that transforms a semi-automatic into a fully-automatic killing machine capable of unloading 24 rounds in seconds.

Twenty shell casings and a bullet fragment were recovered from the scene. Five of those casings were matched directly to Vick's weapon.

Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden called it "a brazen, unconscionable act of violence made all the worse by being committed in the middle of one of our city's proudest cultural events, attended by thousands."

Vick was arrested on scene that night in 2023 and released on a paltry $6,000 bail — and that is when his audacity really went into overdrive.

In December 2024 — the night before his original trial was set to begin — Vick sliced off his court-ordered GPS ankle monitor and vanished. He was on the run for six months before authorities tracked him down in Georgia and dragged him back to Massachusetts in chains.

Two co-defendants are also caught up in the case. Dwayne Francis, 31, of Dorchester, faces trial June 1. Sebastian Monteiro, 22, of Boston, has already been sentenced to four years in state prison.