Boston leaders demand safety plan after stabbing of 91-year-old Jean McGuire

BOSTON (CBS) – At a gathering with more than 50 local leaders and organizations present outside Franklin Park on Wednesday, Dr. Jean McGuire was hailed as a “political matriarch” in the community. “She is in some ways the Rosa Parks of the Black community” in Boston, explained Reverend Kevin Peterson of the New Democracy Coalition. 

McGuire was stabbed in a seemingly random attack as she walked her dog in Franklin Park near her Roxbury home on Tuesday night. 

The 91-year-old is a civil rights pioneer, the first Black woman on the Boston School Committee, and the founder of the METCO program.

McGuire is expected to make a full recovery, but her stabbing sparked outrage among faith and community leaders. 

“Why is it that a 91-year-old woman cannot have the faith in her community to just walk her dog? it’s unbelievable,” exclaimed an emotional Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson at the event. 

District Attorney Kevin Hayden was there, too, but neither Mayor Michelle Wu nor new Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox attended the event despite invitations, according to Rev. Peterson. 

In the wake of the murder of a 14-year-old boy in Roxbury on Monday, followed by the stabbing of Dr. McGuire, leaders in Dorchester and Roxbury are demanding a safety plan from the Mayor and the new Boston Police Commissioner. 

“Since we have given [Commissioner Cox] a honeymoon in his weeks and his months in office, we now ask him to come off the honeymoon and present a plan to the community where there is real community policing,” Rev. Peterson explained. “We need a plan now.” 

Peterson and other leaders explained that while their neighborhoods see a disproportionate level of crime, they don’t feel an appropriate amount of city resources are being allocated to react to or prevent future crime. 

“The violence in the city of Boston, particularly within Roxbury and Dorchester in Mattapan is unprecedented and disproportionate,” Peterson explained. “And where there is a disproportionate amount of violence and crime, there should be a disproportionate amount of resources.” 

According to Boston Police data, there is a disproportionate amount of certain crimes in Dorchester and Roxbury. 

At the event, District Attorney Hayden said while he knows the community needs the city’s help, investigators need neighbors’ help too to solve these crimes. “We cannot do it without you,” Hayden said. “We need our communities in order to best serve our communities.”