An arrest has been made in the stabbing death of Conor Reynolds, the 17-year-old Cathedral High student who was killed outside a Springfield bar last weekend. According to a report on MassLive by Springfield Republican reporter Patrick Johnson, the SPD has arrested a 20-year-old city man named Eric Denson.
Mayor Domenic Sarno and Police Commissioner William Fitchett will be holding a press conference later with more details. According to an earlier Republican article, a classmate reported that Reynolds had been trying to break up an argument shortly before he and another student (who was treated and released from the hospital) were stabbed.
Questions linger, meanwhile, about the bar and grill where the stabbing took place: Blue Fusion, on St. James Avenue. That restaurant apparently does not have active licenses to serve food or liquor, nor an active entertainment license, and the party Reynolds was attending reportedly had more than twice the number of people than allowed by the club’s occupancy limit.
Reynolds’ murder has been a hot topic Springfield’s cyber chatters—particularly at MassLive—with some expressing grief and sympathy over his death, and others arguing over whether there are racial overtones to the incident (Reynolds was white; Denson is black).
Meanwhile, Reynolds’ family has released a statement, through the Springfield Diocese, asking for privacy and calling for peace: “On behalf of our family, we wish to take this opportunity to express our sincerest thanks to all those who have reached out to us over these past few days. We are devastated by the tragedy which has taken Conor from us—our beloved son, brother, grandson, cousin, nephew and good friend. We ask his classmates at Cathedral High School and all his friends from the community to remember Conor, not by the tragedy that has marked his death, but by the way he lived his life as a kind, peace-loving, and genuinely positive person. Let us all pay a true and lasting tribute to Conor by committing ourselves to speak out against the senseless acts of violence which permeate our society. Let Conor’s smile forever shine in the hearts of all who knew him and sustain us during these most difficult days.
“Finally we thank all, including the news media, for respecting our family’s need for quiet and privacy during this time of tremendous loss.”
Reynolds will be waked Thursday afternoon, and buried after a funeral mass at Holy Name Church on Friday morning.
