BOSTON — Five young teenage girls are facing charges in the brutal beating of a young woman in Downtown Crossing.
According to a police report, the juveniles pounced on the victim after making a comment about her hairstyle. The attackers reportedly called the victim “white [expletive] with braids” and told her she could not wear her hair in the style because she was “not Black.”
Witnesses told investigators that as many as 20 teens, some as young as 12 years old, swarmed the victim, who is 19 years old.
The juveniles are charged with pulling her hair, punching her and kicking her repeatedly near Washington and Winter Streets just before 7 p.m. Monday night.
“There were at least 15 girls chasing after the woman on the bike, and they started pounding on her,” said witness Christopher Jackson. “They got her down on the ground, and they were holding her down.”
Jackson, who works at a nearby flower stand, described the attack as unprovoked and brutal.
“Her face was all red and scratched. She got up, and she looked like she didn’t know where she was,” recalled Jackson.
Jackson told Boston 25 News that the teens also attacked two witnesses who intervened. Police allege the girls also assaulted responding officers and hurled “racially motivated insults” at them.
The police report states that Boston’s District A-1 has “sustained a recent barrage of juvenile incidents within the district involving young teenagers fighting in public, causing disturbances inside businesses, vandalizing storefronts by smashing glass windows with blunt objects, aggravated assaults, assaults on police officers, and civil rights violations.”
It mentions details about a fight involving teens inside the Black Seed Café on Tremont Street last month.
Just two days before that, police say aggressive teens attacked an 81 year old man inside the McDonald’s on Washington Street.
Earlier that same day, investigators allege that a group of juveniles began shouting “Black Lives Matter” inside Silvertone Bar on Bromfield Street after staff there refused to serve them alcohol. Police allege those teenagers spat on an employee and customers before shattering the front door of the establishment.
The five teens charged in Monday’s attack were reportedly the main aggressors seen on a cell phone video.
As for whether the attack is being probed as a racially motivated crime, police said the department’s Civil Rights Unit has been notified.
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