Michael Patrick Brady

“In the city there’s a thousand things I wanna say to you…”

When I saw the breathless news reports that nearly a thousand people were involved in gang violence on Carson Beach this past Monday, I was skeptical. It looks like I was right to be. The Boston Police is now disputing the State Police report, saying there was no evidence of gang activity.

In a story that makes more sense as viral marketing for the upcoming production of West Side Story at the Colonial Theater, the State Police originally claimed that rival gangs used Facebook and Twitter to organize a rumble on Carson Beach. Right next door to the State Police barracks.

WHDH, WBZ, and the Globe immediately reported this story uncritically, and the idea of urban youths turning a public beach into a warzone caught the fevered imagination of disgraceful outlets like The Drudge Report and England’s Daily Mail. Comment sections at the Globe were full of ignorant, racist invective aimed at urban teens from people whose worst prejudices were seemingly confirmed by the sensational narrative.

Never mind that only a handful were arrested (and subsequently released) at Carson Beach that day, that no injuries were reported, and that it was never explained how State Police happened to determine that actual gangs were involved in an incident that took them by surprise and that they immediately dispersed.

“In the city there’s a thousand faces all shining bright / and those golden faces are under 25…”

Thankfully, WBUR decided to do some actual reporting and talk to some of the kids who were on the beach that day.

No that’s not true, there’s no gangs,” said Amanda Murphy, 17, of Hyde Park.

“‘Cause I guarantee you, if it was some gang stuff, 30 people would have been dead,” said Murphy’s friend, 17-year-old Samantha Louis.

Murphy and Louis are, of course, entirely correct. Boston does have a gang problem, largely confined to West Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, as evidenced by the recent rash of shooting deaths in those neighborhoods. But even 17-year-olds know that gangs don’t fist fight. They don’t start Facebook groups to announce their battles or attract audiences using a #gangfight hashtag. Confronted with such common-sense questioning, the State Police makes only vague references to “intelligence” that led them to their conclusion, but offers no concrete evidence.

The truth of the matter is that Boston teens used Facebook and Twitter to get their friends to join them on Carson Beach for Memorial Day weekend because, as a teen in the WBUR article said, “Everybody wanted to, like, hang out, and [the] beach is the only place you can hang out and it doesn’t cost you money.” Now, it’s no surprise that a large group of teens getting together on a hot day in close quarters might end up in a few scuffles or fist fights. But the idea that this was an orchestrated gang event attended by 1,000 enthusiastic participants is ludicrous, and evidence of a deeper prejudice against urban teens by our media and authorities.

The message this incident sends is that kids who live in the city, particularly in the working class, urban communities of South Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Roslindale, and Hyde Park, are always suspects. You only have to browse the comment sections in the Globe article to discover that there are large numbers of people who believe that being born into one of these communities means you are invariably a criminal, and that you are unworthy of respect or empathy. Violence must be dealt with, and the fighting at Carson Beach cannot be tolerated, but the media reaction to this story transformed a large number of casual, innocent beachgoers into accomplices and accessories to a crime they had nothing to do with, and reinforced the unfortunate belief that city living is rife with gangs and other existential threats. As a kid who grew up in Dorchester and who now lives in Southie as an adult, I find the tone of this narrative all too familiar, and just as wrong as it’s always been.

I’d like to believe that the local media will be as loud in their retractions or qualifications as they were in their initial stories, but that’s rarely the case.

“In the city there’s a thousand men in uniforms…”

In the previously linked article, this stood out to me in particular:

Menino was not specific about what tactics concerned him but two city officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the mayor was unsettled by images in the media that showed State Police wearing black gloves and wielding batons as they ordered the crowd to leave.

My wife and I were walking to Carson Beach at around 6 P.M. that night, roughly 30 minutes after the State Police cleared it out. There was a grey and blue State Police helicopter hovering very low over the baseball fields at Moakley Park. I didn’t know about what had transpired—I thought they were going to land to do a medivac flight for a car accident or something. I only found out about the events after checking Boston.com on my phone. The scene was quiet, calm, and the police presence was still strong. My wife and I enjoyed a very nice walk along Day Boulevard, toward Pleasure Bay, and saw lots of kids and families enjoying the warm weather and beautiful scenery.

And that’s what the majority of people herded off of Carson Beach earlier had been doing. It’s bad enough that a few scrappy kids had to ruin their day; they then had to endure a full-throated media onslaught that characterized them as thugs, gang members, and criminals.

As Adam Gaffin wrote, referencing The Warriors, “This isn’t 1979, and Carson Beach isn’t the Bronx.” It’s also not the Carson Beach or South Boston or Dorchester of 1979, either. The world has changed, but unfortunately our prejudices and stereotypes haven’t.