Boston Carnival shooting 'can't take away our joy,' says Councilor Louijeune

Paris Alston: This is GBH's Morning Edition. This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of Boston Carnival, complete with a parade that drew hundreds of people into the streets of Roxbury and Dorchester to join in the celebration.

But that celebration was marred by violence at Saturday mornings J'ouvert Parade, a pre-Carnival party that took place in Dorchester. Six men and two women were shot, and their injuries are non-life threatening.

Police arrested two suspects, who are set to be arraigned in court today.

Speaking during a press conference after the shooting, Carnival leaders and city officials like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu affirmed the shooting was unrelated to the Carnival events.

Michelle Wu: The event itself, the incredible organizers and the Caribbean community that comes together, this is a huge benefit for the city of Boston to have this event. The economic impact from visitors coming from all around the world. We have one of the largest celebrations, one of the longest-running celebrations. And to associate any individual event with acts that might have happened that were nearby or unaffiliated with it, I think can reinforce harmful perceptions in our community.

Alston: And even as officials like Boston City Council President Ed Flynn called for the afternoon parade to be canceled, the festivities went on.

City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune was in attendance and joins us now to talk about what all happened Saturday.

Councilor, when you hear this — I know you were there. I saw on your Twitter page that you were at the celebration and looked to be having a good time. What made you still go out, in spite of what happened?

Ruthzee Louijeune: Good morning, Paris, and thank you for having me on.

Carnival has been a tradition in the city of Boston that I grew up with. Since I was a young kid, I've been attending Carnival celebrations on Blue Hill Avenue, and it's really about community, about joy, about celebration and about festivities. And I continued — along with thousands of others in the city of Boston and from really around the country and around the world — continued to celebrate in Carnival celebrations on Saturday after the police ensured that those involved were apprehended and that the festivities could continue.

Alston: And, you know, I was right there with you. I mean, I made a calculated decision, right, to go out because I wanted to dance. I wanted to join and have fun. And I mean, it's rare, right? It's this is one of the only celebrations like this that happens in that part of the city.

Now, I did mention that Council President Flynn had called for the parade to be canceled. What what's your response to that?

Louijeune: Carnival is so important to our Caribbean community here. So important. Everyone looks forward to it every single year. And to cancel it when we had the mayor and public safety officials responding in a manner to ensure community so that the festivities could continue -- I'm really glad that they did. The issue with those who were injured, I'm hoping them and wishing them a swift recovery. And for those who engage in gun violence in our city, or who take advantage of the fact that everyone is outside early on a Saturday morning to engage in dangerous activity? They're going to be dealt with. We can't allow this to happen. We can't allow this to continue to mare our celebrations and to take away our joy. I'm glad that no one was seriously injured here. That could happen any time that there's a presence of a gun, that's always a fear. And so we have more work to do to ensure we continue to work against gun violence. And the city has a really great team that is committed to community safety, that is committed to getting these guns off of our streets.

Alston: And online comparisons have been made to Cambridge Carnival and pointing out the fact that these incidents don't necessarily happen there, when we have seen repeated incidents of violence happening around the time of Boston's Carnival. I'm curious about your thoughts about why that doesn't happen in a place like Cambridge and what may need to change in Boston to ensure that the celebration remains safe?

Louijeune: Cambridge is Carnival is great. Our carnival is much larger, and it happens in the communities where our Caribbean communities live. And these are also communities, unfortunately, that have been marred by decades of violence and poverty and structural racism. And so we have a lot of work to do to combat the presence of violence that exists in our neighborhoods -- in our Black and brown neighborhoods -- and invest in the work of prevention. How are we preventing people from getting guns, how are we preventing the proliferation of guns in our streets? Oftentimes, the gun violence that we're seeing are with people who are older adults who have been just so disconnected from social services, so disconnected from programing, who are exercising and dealing with trauma through violent means. And we have a lot more investments to do in people on an individual basis to prevent the harm on the front end. And that's what the Boston Public Health Commission is doing. That's what our Senior Adviser on Community Safety is doing, Isaac Yablo. And that's what our first responders are doing in helping us think critically about how we do the work of prevention, which is what is going to stop things like this from happening. And I think Cambridge is a good example of like folks coming out and enjoying Carnival — but we can enjoy Carnival and ensure community safety at the same time.

Alston: Now, we should note that there was also a double shooting near the Carnival festival in Worcester. Also further away this weekend, there was a racially motivated shooting down in Jacksonville, Florida. And with the incident that happened in Dorchester as well as the one in Jacksonville — these are things that are classified as mass shootings. But there's a distinction at the same time. And how does that how should that inform the way that we approach solving these issues?

Louijeune: Well, I think the framework when you look at both of the shootings is different. Here you have a shooter in Jacksonville who is really racially motivated to kill people who don't look like him, in a state where we have a governor who has really been doing everything he can to erase Black history and to really target the Black residents of Florida. And as a result, you have people who feel inspired, motivated, liberated to engage in hateful activity. And so stemming that is about, how do we ensure that we have elected officials who aren't inspiring people to engage in terrible activity? We saw this under the Trump presidency. And so there's more work to do there. And we have more work to do in our communities when we're talking about, how do we get guns out of people's hands? We are a country. We look at the Supreme Court and how much they have prevented people from engaging in gun control. And so we have a lot of work to do.