Boston’s Caribbean group, donning vibrant, beautiful costumes of crowns, feathers, masks, and rhinestones danced and sang alongside the streets of Roxbury and Dorchester as a robust police presence stored watch over the celebration.
“I always feel safe,” Montserrat native Jadine Greenaway advised the Herald Saturday afternoon as she ready for town’s annual Caribbean parade. “The Boston police officers do a wonderful job, they are out here, they’re smiling like they’re confident. The Boston EMS are out here. Everyone is here to make sure we have a wonderful day.”
“Boston is my second home,” Greenaway stated. “Why wouldn’t I feel safe here?”
Final 12 months’s Caribbean Carnival was marred by a mass taking pictures that left eight folks injured, resulting in considerations and calls for an elevated police presence to make sure the security of all individuals, spectators, and the group at giant.
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox responded to these considerations, altering the route for the morning J’ouvert parade, the place final 12 months’s taking pictures occurred, and pledging aggressive enforcement and assist from state police.
The J’ouvert parade, which began at 6 a.m. and occurred solely on Circuit Drive in Franklin Park, went off with out a hitch, stated Shirley Shillingford, who has served as president of Boston Caribbean Carnival for 34 years.
“So far, it has started out good, and we are hoping it continues,” Shillingford, a Jamaican native, advised the Herald. “All of the police have been wonderful. We could have never asked better of them.”
Boston Police made at the very least 15 arrests and recovered about 9 firearms through the day’s festivities, Sgt. Det. John Boyle advised the Herald Saturday night.
Addressing the problems which have occurred on the Caribbean Carnival celebrations in previous years, Cox stated Friday there can be “zero-tolerance for any kind of violence whatsoever.”
The Carnival celebration is taken into account to be “family-friendly,” he stated, that means that no weapons, together with permitted weapons, can be allowed. Cox additionally urged residents to name police to report any neighbors holding late- or in a single day events, which the commissioner stated have led to issues in previous years.
Greenaway, 46, has come to the Carnival ever since she was a 16-year-old, having immigrated from Montserrat at age 8. This 12 months, she helped design costumes for the Boston Socaholics, a band that performs music she described because the “R&B of the West Indies.”
“It’s my ability, and our ability, as Caribbean people,” stated Greenaway, carrying rhinestones and a purple-and-gold costume, “to showcase our artistry, to showcase our culture, our music, and really show how much spirit we have, how free we are, how we embrace life as it is, and we take time to truly enjoy life.”
Final Sunday night, 5 folks had been shot inside Franklin Park, an incident that Cox described as a “heinous act” that marred the top of the Dominican pageant. The entire accidents look like non-life-threatening, police stated.
Tito Jackson, a former metropolis councilor for Roxbury and Dorchester named the grand marshal for this 12 months’s Caribbean Carnival, identified how BPD has advised him town’s “had the safest year so far.”
“We will not allow one person or one incident to cast a shadow on the wonderful people, on the wonderful community,” Jackson advised the Herald, including he regarded ahead to feasting on jerk rooster through the day’s festivities. “We will not allow any news outlet to tell who and what we are. We know we are this city, we make up this city, we work hard every day to live here.”
Metropolis Councilor Ed Flynn despatched a letter to the police commissioner within the days earlier than the Carnival, urging Cox to request “law enforcement assistance of neighboring cities and towns for this weekend with many events taking place across the city, including the Caribbean parade.”
“Everything is going well,” Flynn advised the Herald as he arrived to Martin Luther King Boulevard earlier than the primary parade began within the afternoon. “It’s about working together and respecting each other. That’s a critical part of it.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-MA seventh District, known as the Caribbean Carnival the “perfect capstone” on the heels of getting simply returned from the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago.
“Let us not forget that this is an incredible contributor to our economy, it makes this a destination location,” she advised reporters. “It’s a family-friendly event, a tradition that people who’ve grown up in the city their entire lives look forward to.”
Photograph by Paul Connors/Boston Herald
Anaya Neblett, 14, of Boston, dances in foam shot from a float through the Caribbean Pageant Parade Saturday. (Photograph by Paul Connors/Media Information Group/Boston Herald)
Photograph by Paul Connors/Boston Herald
Revelers from Socaholics dance troupe parade alongside Warren Avenue through the Caribbean Pageant Parade Saturday. (Photograph by Paul Connors/Media Information Group/Boston Herald)
Photograph by Paul Connors/Boston Herald
A Boston Police officer scans the group through the Caribbean Pageant Parade Saturday. (Photograph by Paul Connors/Media Information Group/Boston Herald)
