On Dec. 20, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu issued a public apology to Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, two Black men who were wrongfully arrested in connection to the murder of a pregnant white woman in 1989. The incident exacerbated existing divides in a city already fractured along racial lines and reignited distrust and frustration between the Black community and the Boston Police Department.
“We are here today to acknowledge the tremendous pain that the city of Boston inflicted on Black residents throughout our neighborhoods 34 years ago,” Wu — Boston’s first Asian American Mayor — said during a press conference at City Hall Wednesday, according to a video reposted by the Boston Globe.
“The mayor’s office, city officials and the Boston Police Department took actions that directly harmed these families and continue to impact the larger community, reopening a wound that has gone untended for decades. On behalf of the Boston Police Department, the mayor’s office and the entire city of Boston. I want to say to Mr. Swanson and Mr. Bennett, the entire Bennett family, and Boston’s entire black community — I am so sorry for what you endured.”
In 1989, life for Swanson and Bennett changed when they were accused of shooting Carol Stuart. Authorities later discovered that Stuart’s husband, Charles Stuart, was responsible for her murder.
On Oct. 23, 1989, Charles called 911 to report an attempted carjacking after leaving a childbirth class at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He claimed that he and his pregnant wife had been shot multiple times by a Black gunman in a tracksuit and forced to drive to the Mission Hill area – a neighborhood that is home to a large African American and Hispanic population, the Boston Globe noted. Police set out on a mission to find the imaginary killer, stopping and frisking Black men along the way.
Swanson was the first suspect…
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