By George P. Hassett

Five males, three from Somerville, one from Everett and one from Dorchester, all between the ages of 15 and 21, were spray painting on the ground at the Winter Hill Community School while carrying knives and marijuana on Tuesday, Feb. 5, according to police.

Police were first called to the neighborhood by a citizen reporting a group of eight to nine black males fighting in front of his residence. Police could not locate them but, knowing the playground at the Winter Hill Community School is a local hangout, went there to check it out.

As Officer Diogo deOliveira pulled into the playground he saw five males-Geoffrey Christian Matthews, 17, of Everett, Sabian Rajhan Walker, 20, of Dorchester, Diogo Moraes, 21, of 15 Auburn Ave., Antuan James, 17, of 17 Sycamore Terrace and a 15-year-old juvenile, of Somerville-at the rear entrance of the school begin to walk away, police said.

‚ÄúI ordered them not to move.  All but [the juvenile] obeyed my command,‚Äù deOliveira wrote in his incident report.

DeOliveira approached the juvenile and told him to stop, police said, but the juvenile allegedly turned around and walked towards the officer with his hands in his pockets and said, ‚ÄúI didn’t do nothing dog.‚Äù

When the juvenile would not take his hands from his pockets, officers on the scene conducted a pat frisk for safety purposes and found a knife, police said. 

‚ÄúAfter he realized that I found the knife, he then took his hand off the guard rail and turned towards me.  I tried to place his hands back on the guard rail when he began resisting and attempted to break away from me.  Predicting a more serious struggle, I applied a distraction technique, which was sufficient for me  to take  control of this individual and handcuff him,‚Äù deOliveira wrote.

Then the officers said they smelled something.

‚ÄúWhile attempting to identify the other 4 individuals, we all came to the conclusion that there was a  smell of fresh spray paint in the area,‚Äù deOliveira wrote.

Officers looked in the area of the rear door of the school, where they first saw the five males, and allegedly found fresh graffiti writing on the ground and next to that found a can of black spray paint.   

Matthews and the juvenile also had fresh paint on their fingers, police said, and all five males were charged with defacing property. Three of the males-Moraes, Matthews and Walker–also allegedly gave police false names.

During another search of the juvenile police allegedly found a small bag of marijuana and one blunt cigar filled with marijuana. All five males were arrested and charged with defacing property while the juvenile was also charged with resisting arrest, possession of a dangerous weapon and possession of a class D drug.