What Happened In South Boston?

Is gender identity ideology obscuring the truth of a tragic news story?

Last week a shocking story appeared in The Boston Herald. Shortly after 11am on Saturday 17th June, Boston emergency services were called to a public housing apartment in the south of the city. A casualty at the address was, apparently, not breathing and in urgent need of medical attention.

Officers of the Boston Fire Department (BDF), the Boston Police Department (BDP) and emergency medical service personnel all attended the scene. It seems that the fire department was the first to arrive.

The address was an apartment in the Mary Ellen McCormack Housing Complex which is operated by the city. It was reported by The Boston Herald that BDF officers discovered an extremely unsanitary dwelling littered with drugs, alcohol and sex toys. They also found, laying on the floor, an unresponsive casualty who was later pronounced dead at the scene. Some news outlets have speculated that the cause of death was a drugs overdose but this remains unconfirmed.

The subsequent BDF incident report recorded that there were approximately six people in the apartment and that they ‘appeared to be males’. Reporting on the incident on 19th June, The Boston Herald said it had learned from ‘multiple sources’ that these males were ‘dressed as women’. Similarly, a report from Law Officer referred to the males at the property as ‘men dressed as women’. Local news channel, WCVB-TV 5, also reported on this story and referred to ‘cross-dressing men’.

The Daily Mail reported that the dead body was that of a ‘trans woman’. Local news station, NBC10 Boston, described the deceased as a ‘young woman’ and referred to them with female pronouns. A later article in The Boston Globe described the deceased as a 28-year-old woman. However, the article in Law Officer described the deceased as a ‘male adult’. Similarly, when Howie Carr interviewed city councillor, Erin Murphy, for his radio programme, he reported that the deceased was ‘a guy’.

The BDF incident report states that, “The apartment was in extreme unsanitary conditions”. It goes on to say, “All of the adult parties were being uncooperative and did not provide helpful information. All adults present denied having children inside the apartment”. Nevertheless, firefighters subsequently discovered four children, ranging in age from five to ten years old, being concealed from them ‘by an adult male’ in a back bedroom.

Boston city councillor and public safety chairman, Michael Flaherty, told The Boston Herald that “A man wearing a wig” had claimed to be the father of the children.

The fire crew filed a “51A form with the appropriate state agency”. The 51A form is specifically designated for “Reporting alleged child abuse or neglect” to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).

On 22nd June NBC10 Boston reported, “Police say the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families was called due to the apartment's condition. The agency confirmed in a statement Wednesday that they had taken custody of the children.”

From the official BFD documentation and scant media reports, the basic facts of this case seem to be that a fatality was discovered in a squalid apartment where a group of cross-dressing men were or had been using drugs, alcohol and sex toys. There were four young children on the premises who were being deliberately concealed from the first responders and these children were subsequently taken into custody by the DCF.

However, on 23rd June, the Boston Police Department (BPD) issued a statement contradicting the official fire department report and refuting all previous media accounts. The statement claims that ‘the adults’ in the apartment were fully co-operative, that there were no drugs or ‘other concerning materials’ on the scene, that conditions were not unsanitary and that the children ‘all had a parent present’ and were not being deliberately hidden from the emergency service officers.

The BPD statement appears to suggest that Fire Department Captain Jonathan Hernandez - an officer previously commended for his service - fabricated the official BFD report.

The BPD statement does not deny that a 51A report was filed with Boston’s Department of Children and Families, an unusual procedure if there were really no suspicious or concerning circumstances as claimed. Such action is only taken when emergency service officers “Suspect that a child is being abused, neglected, or both”.

Furthermore, the BPD statement does seem to carefully and deliberately avoid mentioning the sex of the deceased person and the adults present.

According to journalist, Aidan Kearney, the Boston Police Department report has redacted not only the deceased person’s name but also their age and their sex. Why is this? Normally, such details are only withheld from the public if the victim’s next of kin has not yet been informed. But this report clearly states that the deceased’s mother had already been notified.

It is worth noting that, initially at least, this story was roundly ignored by the majority of Boston’s mainstream media outlets. For the first few days, what would normally be a huge story was only covered by The Boston Herald and a handful of local stations.

Similarly, the city’s political leaders largely ignored this incident which, considering a publicly operated housing complex is at the centre of the story, seems unusual. Only three city councillors (Erin Murphy, Michael Flaherty and Ed Flynn) originally spoke publicly about this case.

For days there was absolutely no comment, official or otherwise, from Boston mayor, Michelle ‘she/her’ Wu.

Last year, under Wu’s leadership, the mayor’s office created Boston’s first Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement to “Empower, protect, and advance the rights and dignity of Boston’s LGBTQ+ residents by developing policies, community-oriented programming, and providing resources for the city’s LGBTQ+ community”.

It was almost a week after the incident that Mayor Wu finally broke her silence. But she only spoke out in order to dispute reported accounts of the story.

Speaking at a public appearance in Dorchester on Friday 23rd June, Wu decried what she described as ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘rumours’ in the press.

“Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Friday sharply disputed allegations in some media reports about the conditions inside a South Boston apartment where first responders tried to save a person’s life last weekend…

Reports prepared by first responders who were at the scene where a woman died are reliable, Wu said, while other accounts are not…

‘We will do whatever it takes to protect our children in the city. But that also means not fueling conspiracy theories or rumors that are not based on the facts of what happened there’, Wu said. ‘I think this is an important reminder that it’s important to have a grounding in the facts of what occurred and to let the proper authorities do their investigation.’”

If Mayor Wu is referring to rumours about some of the men being dressed as women, remember that The Boston Herald reported ‘multiple sources’ had made this assertion.

Perhaps some honest and transparent reporting on this case would help put an end to the ‘rumours’ to which Mayor Wu refers? Because, at the moment, the secrecy and confusion surrounding the story is only fuelling the ‘conspiracy theories’.

Whatever the facts of this tragic situation, the only thing that does seem clear is that deliberate efforts are being made to conceal them.