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Bullets fly near TD Garden after shooters in hoodies unleash hail of gunfire sending bar patrons scattering

Wednesday, May 27, 2026
4 min read
MDN Staff
Bullets fly near TD Garden after shooters in hoodies unleash hail of gunfire sending bar patrons scattering

Boston detectives picked numbered evidence markers out of the pavement outside the TD Garden dive bar Tuesday night. Stray rounds shattered the front door of the Hotel Indigo next door and drilled through a parked SUV — but Boston EMS says no one was transported from the scene.

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BOSTON — Yellow police tape flapped in the spring wind across Friend Street late Tuesday night as Boston detectives picked numbered evidence markers out of the pavement outside Sullivan's Tap, the corner-bar dive that has anchored the foot of TD Garden for decades.
Shots rang out shortly before 11 p.m. near the corner of Friend and Causeway streets — directly outside Sullivan's Tap — sending the bar's patrons diving for the floor and bolting for the back of the room as the rounds cracked outside.
"I thought it was fireworks," one witness told NBC10 Boston. "I thought it was just like you know, fireworks going off, but then I saw like the muzzle shot."
Moments later, the witness said, two people pulled hoodies up over their heads and ran.
Evidence markers scattered across Friend Street under police tape.
Boston police laid down at least nine numbered evidence placards across Friend Street, marking spent casings from one curb to the other. Photo: Boston 25 News.
Down the block at Sullivan's Tap, the dive bar staff posted surveillance video to Instagram showing customers scattering off bar stools and bolting for the back of the room as the rounds cracked outside. The caption: "Everyone is safe at Sullys after shots were fired on friend st."

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Stray rounds shattered the front door of the Hotel Indigo at 280 Friend Street next door — the same boutique hotel where a New Hampshire man was convicted of second-degree murder for a fatal 2021 stabbing — and drilled through the rear windshield of a black SUV parked at the curb. By the time officers arrived, the shooters were gone.
Boston 25 News was at the scene with cameras as crime-scene techs marked spent casings from one curb to the other.
Boston EMS confirmed no one was transported from the scene. Boston police said they recovered ballistic evidence and are investigating.
Black SUV with a bullet hole through the rear windshield and evidence marker on top.
A black SUV parked at the curb took at least one round through the back glass, the bullet hole tagged with an orange placard reading 9. Photo: Boston 25 News.
Detectives counted out markers two, three, four, six and eight clustered in the middle of the street near the strike zone.
Close-up of evidence marker 4 next to a spent shell casing on pavement.
A spent shell casing sat alone beside evidence marker 4, glinting under the streetlights. Photo: Boston 25 News.
The scene sat directly beneath a lighted "Beacon Hill" sign across the street and the rainbow-lit facade of a neighboring building — a corner that on most nights hums with Celtics fans, Orange Line commuters, and tourists checking into the Indigo.
No suspect descriptions beyond the hoodies have been released. No arrests had been made as of early Wednesday.
The Tuesday-night blast lands in a Boston that, on Mayor Michelle Wu's watch, keeps racking up shootings even as the mayor insists Boston is "the safest major city in America." Just days before the Friend Street rounds went off, MDN covered a Roxbury shooting that ended with two teens, a Glock, a revolver and an assault-style rifle in BPD custody, and a 17-casing Dorchester gun battle that sprayed houses and a parked car before a 21-year-old repeat offender was nabbed.
This is a developing story.

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