IT WAS a bracing moment.
It came decades after a gruesome murder case tore at the city, exposing the underpinnings of a law enforcement system that long contributed to Boston’s reputation for racism. The first woman of color to ever hold the prominent office said it was time for public officials to come clean as she sought to make amends for what happened.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who offered a high-profile apology this week over the city’s handling of the notorious Stuart case?
No, then-Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins.
Four years before Wu’s municipal mea culpa, Rollins offered a similarly forthright, if little noticed, declaration at a 2019 panel discussion convened to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1989 murder of Carol DiMaiti Stuart and her son Christopher.
“Today we remember a dark time in our city’s history: the murder of a mother and her child, the assault on a community, the false accusations of black men, the complicity and brutality of law enforcement, including the office I now lead, the amplification of the media and the perpetuation of a lie that caused division, distrust, and injustice,” Rollins told the gathering at Roxbury Community College.
Stuart, who was seven months pregnant, was fatally shot on a Mission Hill side street. Her son Christopher, delivered prematurely that night, died 17 days later. Her husband, Charles Stuart, who was gravely wounded, told police they were shot by a Black man. Police proceeded to turn the neighborhood upside down in the search for the would-be assailant, an all-out manhunt that had two different Black men, Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, arrested and held over the ensuing weeks as the possible shooters. Less than three months after the shooting, Charles Stuart jumped to his death off the Tobin Bridge as police closed in on him as the person actually responsible for orchestrating the murders.
“The people of Mission Hill – especially black men – were treated like criminals rather than members of a community that, like all of us, are innocent until proven guilty and who the police are allegedly duty bound to protect and serve,” Rollins said. “The then-Suffolk County district attorney, mayor of Boston, and police commissioner all allowed that vilification and criminalization to continue unchecked.”
“I’m here to say I’m sorry, especially to the Bennett family,” Rollins said at the forum, which members of Bennett’s family and Carol DiMaiti Stuart’s brother, Carl DeMaiti, took part in. “Because the truth is, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office was complicit in what happened 30 years ago.”
The forum in late October of 2019 received little coverage. Rollins, elected on a strong reform platform, went on two years later to be named US attorney for Massachusetts, only to see her career go up in flames as two separate Justice Department investigations harshly condemned her improper involvement in the race to succeed her in the DA’s office. She resigned earlier this year.
Checking in on DiZoglio’s push to unravel nondisclosure agreements
State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is already at odds with one branch of state government, launching a ballot question that would give her the power to audit the Legislature. Are Gov. Maura Healey and the executive branch next on her list?
DiZoglio stirred the pot on Beacon Hill when she pursued an audit of the Legislature and, when rebuffed, launched a ballot campaign that has drawn support from constituencies on the left and the right concerned about transparency.
A separate audit focused on state government employee settlements has flown under the radar since the Boston Globe reported in March that she intends for the audit to cover all state agencies. DiZoglio is pursuing records from every agency, and has raised the prospect of legal action if she meets resistance, creating the potential for her to be battling the Legislature at the ballot box and the Healey administration in court at the same time. A Healey spokesperson said all executive branch agencies are “working diligently” to respond to the requests.
No lawsuits have been filed yet. “As one would expect, different agencies are in different places, however we have not yet had to proceed to court to secure the requested documents and we are hopeful we won’t have to,” DiZoglio said in a statement.
Awkward table talk
Mayor Michelle Wu’s holiday gathering for “electeds of color” managed to stir a bit of right-wing media blowback, despite efforts by other voices to either celebrate the event or declare it a complete non-story.
Left unsaid was the real intrigue surrounding the dinner: The seating plan that placed Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden (fifth from left) next to outgoing Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo (fourth from left). To say the two aren’t close is like suggesting Rudy Giuliani is facing some bill-paying headwinds. Hayden defeated Arroyo in a nasty 2022 Democratic primary that featured wheelbarrows of dirt being dished against both candidates. The cutthroat scheming contributed heavily to Arroyo being broomed out of his council seat by voters this fall and, as the above item noted, cost his ally Rachael Rollins her job.
All of which is to say the seating arrangement seems certain to have made for some awkward dinner conversation, though it was all smiles for the camera.
