“We are continuing to look at what community policing should be,” Sullivan said. He said he hopes the pilot program will be able to expand throughout the city.

“We want residents to recognize the lieutenant who oversees their neighborhood,” he said. “We want them to know their beat officers.”

But Sullivan echoed Pasquarello in saying that residents shouldn’t read too deeply into the recent series of crimes. “The fear of crime may outpace the reality, and that can be paralyzing to a community,” he said.

Blood on the Streets

An alleged killer remains in custody in Florida where he fled, another man is dead and five victims are recovering from injuries sustained over the last month and a half in what Pasquarello described as apparently unrelated incidents.

On May 30, an East Boston resident was stabbed outside Pizzeria Uno on JFK Street. James Winquist, 19, of Hingham is being held for lack of bail in connection with the crime. The unidentified victim, described by witnesses as an African-American male, was taken to Beth Israel hospital where he underwent emergency abdominal surgery, but was later released.

Robert Florio and Sarah Butler were also arraigned in connection with the crime, according to Emily LaGrassa, a spokesperson for the Middlesex District Attorney’s office.

Five days later, 37-year-old Daryn Dupree of Cambridge was allegedly shot several times in the legs and lower torso by Jose Dejesus, 31, of Cambridge, at the intersection of River Street and Putnam Avenue. Jose Fontanez, 29, also a Cambridge resident, was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting as well.

Pasquarello said it appeared the shooting was not random, and that Dupree was personally targeted in the attack.

According to police, another shooting followed on June 6, when a male assailant approached an unidentified man seated in a parked car by the intersection of Putnam Avenue and Magee Street and fired several shots into the vehicle before fleeing. Police have not recovered a weapon or issued any warrants in connection with the shooting. Pasquarello said the motive behind this incident is still unknown but that investigators think it was also a targeted act. The victim survived and has been released from the hospital.

In the third shooting in under a week, Robert Scott, 26, of Cambridge, was gunned down in broad daylight on the afternoon of June 8, while he waited at a bus stop on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Walden Street. According to police, Scott, the father of a five-year-old girl, was standing in front of the KFC and Taco Bell located near Porter Square when he was approached by a male assailant who allegedly produced a handgun and opened fire. Scott suffered four fatal shots to the torso.

In a statement dated June 18, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley identified Scott’s alleged killer as Markendy Jean, 25, of Malden. Jean, who fled to Florida following the crime, surrendered himself to authorities last week, according to LaGrassa. He is scheduled to return to Massachusetts in custody within the next two weeks, LaGrassa said.

Pasquarello declined to comment on a possible motive or whether this incident was related to either of the previous two. But the Cambridge Chronicle reported last week that Jean was fired earlier this spring for fighting with Dupree, the victim of the first shooting.

The Chronicle also reported that a search of court records revealed Jean has a lengthy criminal record—including convictions for unarmed robbery, drug charges and assault and battery on a police officer.

On June 22, an unidentified Billerica girl told the Medford police she had been sexually assaulted over the weekend. She and a companion, 12 and 14 years old respectively, were allegedly raped at a party in Cambridge, the Chronicle reported. The two girls have since been released from medical care. LaGrassa declined to discuss the details of the case, which is still being investigated. But she said that the actual location of the rapes is not yet clear.