On the evening of September 8, 2002, Eveline Barros-Cepeda, a woman of Cape Verdean heritage and a mother to a young son, was killed in Boston after police fired on a fleeing vehicle. Officers tried to stop the car for running a stoplight; the driver did not comply and the vehicle allegedly struck Officer Michael Paillat. Officer Thomas Taylor Jr. then fired five shots into the fleeing car. Eveline Barros-Cepeda, an unarmed passenger in the backseat, was struck and killed.

The driver who precipitated the events was never publicly identified, and it is unknown whether they were ever charged. The shooting contributed to public outcry and led the police commissioner at the time to change the department’s deadly force policy, barring firing at moving vehicles unless officers are fired upon.