A lack of supervision and high volume of out-of-town children have been pointed at by Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox as part of the problem in a violent weekend in the city, after gun violence erupted at a carnival, young movie theater crowds assaulted police officers, and underage drinking peppered a North End feast.
According to Cox, the department had provided as much security as it could during the Caribbean Carnival celebration on Saturday, Aug. 26. But despite those efforts, eight people were shot — six men and two women, all with non life-threatening injuries, police said.
“It’s very difficult to to stop someone who was willing to actually get arrested, who’s willing to to fire off multiple rounds with officers yards away,” Cox said of the shooting during a 3 p.m. press conference Monday.
The commissioner stressed the department had a “very good” plan in place for the event, but said this incident was something “different,” because of the suspect’s boldness to open fire while so close to police officers.
“I can’t get in the minds of people who perpetrate crimes in general. The fact is, we had a visible presence, we were actually there, and they still did it. That is something different,” Cox said.
“There’s a lot of people that have no sanctity for life at all, and that certainly was displayed at that event,” he said.
Besides the aggressive festival attack, other violent altercations over the weekend in the city included two separate fights with teenagers and pre-teens at movie theaters in the city on Sunday, Aug. 27. The AMC Theaters had both been busy due to a $4 ticket sale for National Cinema Day.
Officers were assaulted as they broke up a crowd of around 200 people by the theater at the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester just before 5 p.m., police said. A total of eight boys and girls were arrested, with varying ages between 12, 14 and 17, police said.
Later that evening, at 11 p.m., other officers were injured during a second altercation at the Boston Common 19 AMC Theater.
One officer was pushed to the ground, punched and kicked by the group. And an officer who tried to help was put into a chokehold by a person who jumped on his back, police said.
A teen also jumped up and stomped on the roof of a car as the fights blocked car and foot traffic, police said. There were five boys and girls arrested in total between the ages of 13, 14 and 16 from the fight, police stated.
“We are not babysitters, we’re not built for that… we enforce laws,” Cox said during that Monday news conference.
The commissioner called on parents for better monitoring, and stated, “We need people to supervise these young folks when they come in large groups like that.”
He added that he hoped the situation would improve with the approaching school year.
In addition to the violent altercations over the weekend, officers responded to at least 20 incidents of underage drinking at the St. Anthony’s Feast in the North End on Saturday, Aug. 26, according to police reports.
Cox said there were a “large number of young people coming into the city from outside of Boston, with the sole purpose of underage drinking,” for these festivals.
Multiple teens were stopped throughout the feast with an array of alcoholic beverages, including Fireball and Dr. McGillicudy nips and Angry Orchard, Coors Light and Truly Hard Seltzer cans, the report stated.
One 17-year-old was stopped with a bottle of wine by Feast Detail Officers, police said. And after conversation between the officers and the boy, the officers ended up leaving a voicemail message to the teen’s parents on his cellphone to inform them of his activities.
“Next year, for planning purposes, we might do something a little different in general, to make sure that we address the issues around underage, under-supervised individuals coming in and out,” Cox said of the incidents, adding there was opportunity for future partnership with event organizers to address “particularly outsiders” from the city.
