Five teenage girls face charges of brutally beating a young woman in Downtown Crossing.
According to a police report, the minors pounced on the victim after he made a comment about his hairstyle. The attackers reportedly called the victim “white [expletive] with braids” and told her she couldn’t wear her hair in the style because she was “not black”.
Witnesses told investigators that up to 20 teenagers, some as young as 12, swarmed the 19-year-old victim.
The minors are accused of repeatedly pulling his hair, punching and kicking him near Washington and Winter streets just before 7 p.m. Monday night.
“There were at least 15 girls running after the woman on their bikes, and they started hitting her,” witness Christopher Jackson said. “They put her on the ground and they were holding her down.”
Jackson, who works at a nearby flower stand, described the attack as unprovoked and brutal.
“His face was all red and scratched. She got up and looked like she didn’t know where she was,” Jackson recalled.
Jackson told Boston 25 News that the teens also attacked two witnesses who intervened. Police allege the girls also assaulted officers and hurled “racial slurs” at them.
The police report says Boston’s A-1 District has “supported a recent barrage of juvenile incidents in the District involving young teenagers fighting in public, causing unrest inside businesses, vandalizing storefronts breaking windows with blunt objects, aggravated assaults, assaults on police officers and civil rights violations.
He mentions details of a fight involving teenagers inside the Black Seed Café on Tremont Street last month.
Just two days before that, police say aggressive teenagers attacked an 81-year-old man inside McDonald’s on Washington Street.
Earlier today, investigators allege a group of young people began shouting ‘Black Lives Matter’ inside Silvertone Bar on Bromfield Street after staff refused to serve them alcohol. Police allege the teenagers spat at an employee and customers before breaking down the front door of the establishment.
The five teenagers charged in Monday’s attack were reportedly the main attackers seen in cellphone video.
As to whether the attack qualifies as a racially motivated crime, police said the department’s civil rights unit has been notified.
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