After violent week, Boston activists demand plan from mayor, police commissioner
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BOSTON—Community activists ratcheted up the public pressure on Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox one day after a 91-year-old grandmother was attacked and stabbed in Franklin Park.
“We will not be at rest as a community until the person who committed this crime is brought to justice,” Rev. Kevin Peterson said.
Peterson and other community leaders spoke to reporters on Walnut Ave., a short distance from where police said McGuire was stabbed multiple times while walking her dog Tuesday night. Peterson, founder of the New Democracy Coalition, demanded a plan from Mayor Wu and Boston Police. He also suggested the honeymoon for Cox, who began his tenure in August, is over.
“While in some sense we’ve given him a honeymoon in his months and his weeks in office, we ask him to come off the honeymoon and present a plan for the community,” Peterson said. “We demand Mayor Wu and the [police] commissioner give us a plan.”
The call for action came after a terrible stretch of violent incidents in Boston. An 18-year-old was shot outside Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester on Oct. 4. Six days later, 14-year-old Rosante Osario was shot and killed behind a vacant building on Washington St. in Roxbury.
“When a 14-year-old child is murdered and a day later a 91-year-old grandmother is stabbed and assaulted walking in the park, that is a tragic day in our community,” student minister Randy Muhammad said.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said police are still looking for the suspect who attacked McGuire. Investigators have not announced an arrest in Osario’s death.
“This sporadic violence and this outburst must not continue,” Hayden said. “Enough is enough. It’s about time that we stand up and cry out that we will no longer stand for the violence and unrest that’s happening in our communities.”
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