One day after five people were shot during the Dominican Festival at Franklin Park, safety concerns are now at the top of mind for city officials.
“My daughter happened to be one of the festival goers, and luckily she had left right before that happened,” Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia told NBC10 Boston. “As a mom, one of the first things that scared me was, what if my daughter was caught in the crossfire? And then as a city councilor, understanding that the city right now feels like it’s on fire.”
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Sunday's violence comes ahead of the Boston Caribbean Carnival this Saturday, where last year, eight people were shot near the parade route.
In a press conference during Sunday night’s shooting, Boston police acknowledged the challenges ahead.
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“Sometimes it’s pretty hard to prevent when someone is hell bent on doing something stupid,” said Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox.
Mejia added, “The team that worked on bringing together the festival did a really great job at making sure that they covered all of their bases, including meeting with the Boston Police Captain and others in law enforcement to talk about safety concerns. To make sure that we would get ahead of this situation.”
The Dominican councilor is now creating a city-wide Quality of Life and Community Safety Task Force, which she describes as a collaborative effort to bring everyone into the conversation.
“I think that that is one of the reasons why we’re having a hard time getting a handle on violence, because the community isn’t speaking up,” she said.
For Mejia, that means addressing moped laws, public drinking, noise curfews and more.
“You also have to think about this from a cultural perspective. A lot of folks who come here, this is what they did in their homeland. So unless we’re really educating people to what the laws are here in this city, then they’re not going to uphold them,” Mejia said. “Let’s think differently about what we plan to do this year.”
