[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[soft tense music]
♪ ♪
Yesterday, there was
a dramatic turn of events
as it relates
to this particular matter
which focused on
Mr. Charles Stuart
as a suspect.
♪ ♪
Arrangements were made
from Charles Stuart's brother
to come to my office.
During the course
of the evening,
several members and close
friends of the Stuart family
gave statements.
♪ ♪
These statements clearly
exculpated Willie Bennett
and clearly inculpated
Charles Stuart
in the m*rder of his wife
and infant son.
♪ ♪
I instructed Boston Police
homicide detectives
to arrest Charles Stuart
for the m*rder.
A m*rder that grabbed
the nation's attention
takes a bizarre turn.
Carol Stuart was not
k*lled by a robber
after she left
a birthing class.
Investigation now keys on
her husband and his brother.
Topping News 7 tonight,
a bizarre and sinister twist
in the Carol Stuart
m*rder case.
Charles Stuart now called
the prime suspect.
♪ ♪
That morning, I walked in
the office at about 7:30.
And Mayor Flynn,
in a way that was
completely unlike him,
was sort of leaning
over the desk
and hunched over,
and looked up,
and he said, "Neil, he did it."
He said, "Charles Stuart
k*lled his wife."
♪ ♪
And he just jumped off
the Tobin Bridge
and k*lled himself.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Authorities confirmed
today that
Charles Stuart committed
su1c1de this morning
by jumping off
the Tobin Bridge.
Before 7:00 this morning,
Stuart's car
was found parked
on the Mystic Tobin Bridge
along with a note saying,
in substance,
he couldn't handle
the allegations against him.
♪ ♪
No more comment
other than I will inform you
that the body has
positively been identified
as that of Charles Stuart.
- What's the next step?
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- Reverend Joseph Washington.
- Right now, we have
behind me at the table
the mayor of Boston, Ray Flynn;
Mickey Roache,
the police commissioner;
the district attorney
of Suffolk County,
Newman Flanagan;
the commissioner
of public safety,
head of the State Police,
William McCabe.
Mic check, please.
[indistinct chatter]
At approximately
Chelsea PD notified
the Tobin Bridge of a disabled
on the lower level
of the Tobin Bridge.
In the front passenger seat
of this vehicle,
I observed a driver's license
of the names of Mr. Stuart
and also a note in the front
seat of that vehicle.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
At that time,
a Massport employee,
Officer Stuckey, and myself
looked down into the water,
and we observed off
to our right about 1,000 feet
what appeared to be
a human body bobbing
in the water at that time.
The story that Charles Stuart
told investigators--
that a man jumped into the car,
forced he and his wife
at gunpoint to Mission Hill
in a robbery attempt
and sh*t Mr. Stuart
in the abdomen and Carol Stuart
in the head--
you now believe that story
he told you is false?
It is not true.
That's correct.
Cameras--get themselves
ready with this.
You may be used to it by now.
Yeah, get it out to you.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Yeah.
What do you think
of the news?
What do I think about it?
Well, I'm glad to hear it.
I mean, what I went through
was just too much.
Um...
What can I say that--
Are you bitter?
Yes, I'm bitter
for what they did to my house
and everything.
What did they do
to your house?
They tore it up.
You mean they searched it?
Put holes in the wall.
Boston Police and Brookline
Police did all that.
You know?
Tore the walls up
all to pieces.
They--Mayor Flynn
and Mickey Roache
didn't even come here
and apologize
and say they were sorry.
They go apologize
to the community.
Why apologize to the community?
Apologize to Willie,
and apologize to his family.
That's all we're asking.
No more comment.
That's all I have to say.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
I was in a state of shock.
♪ ♪
I was mad.
I was mad at myself.
Like, how did you not
get this in the paper?
You have to have solid sourcing
to go with something like that.
♪ ♪
I gotta get one person
to tell me
they're looking at him,
and I can't get it.
I consider it
the biggest failure
of my entire 27-year
journalistic career.
We failed
the city of Boston, um,
particularly the residents
of Mission Hill.
I remember feeling
a certain sense
of immediate relief
that it wasn't
the Black guy after all.
And then I remember feeling
an immediate sense of anger
that it was never
the Black guy.
And I remember
especially thinking
that this is the playbook,
that this is what
you have to fight.
This is what
you're going to fight
in terms of how
you are perceived
and how the people
that look like you
are gonna be perceived.
This was once again the--
the fear of Black people,
the assumption of Black people,
the lack of regard
for Black people,
and the lack of regard
for Carol Stuart,
because getting the Black guy
was more important
than getting her k*ller.
Peter O'Malley called me
at my house,
and he said,
"That f*cking assh*le jumped."
[laughs]
I don't know
who he was talking about.
I said, "Who?"
He goes,
"Chuck Stuart just jumped
off the f*cking
Mystic River Bridge."
And I said,
"You're sh1tting me."
Of course, I said, "Why?"
You know,
just a natural reaction.
Something that had never
been contemplated
and was seismic just happened,
and you're shocked.
The next move was to find out
the whole story.
[indistinct chatter]
My name is Nancy Gertner.
I was a criminal defense
and civil rights lawyer
for 24 years,
and I was a federal judge
for 17.
My connection to the case
is that I represented
Matthew Stuart.
He was a bear of a man.
Seemed very immature.
Matthew was the youngest
child in his family.
Matthew was the runt
of the litter.
Chuck was the star
of the family.
Beautiful wife.
Very good job.
Chuck was everything
that Matthew was not,
and so it would make sense that
if Chuck said do this or jump,
Matthew would jump.
He had no mooring
in his life at that time,
and Chuck was essentially
the model.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Matthew assumed it would be
a phonied-up robbery
in downtown Boston,
and that's what he thought
he was participating in.
And then it's only
until later that he realized
that that's not at all
what Chuck had in mind.
When Matthew goes
back home,
he looks in the bag
and sees a g*n,
and he finds
Carol's diamond ring.
He goes then
to return the car,
And when he comes back,
the family is talking
about Chuck being sh*t,
Carol being sh*t,
and suddenly,
Matthew puts it all together.
You have dealt us
an injustice.
Anger is too mild a word
for what these Black community
leaders expressed today.
Try rage.
Try fury.
All the political and religious
leaders here today
charged the media,
the mayor, and the police
with simply ignoring
vital information
in the Stuart case.
And there are some
public officials
who gave credence to that.
I want to know now,
will you call
Mr. Charles Stuart an animal?
On the one hand,
it was relief,
and then it was anger over
the numbers of Black families
that had been affected
by the dragnet
that occurred in Mission Hill.
Folks, this is real.
Say what you feel.
This is your sh*t.
No one has heard from you yet.
And now they're gonna hear
from Mission Hill.
There are people being hurt
every day here,
and nobody gives a sh*t.
That was the attitude
in the Black community.
So many of our people
were k*lled in Mission Hill.
Nothing was said about it.
But all of a sudden,
when a white woman--
and it's a shame that
any life is lost,
but all of a sudden,
when a white woman
loses her life
or somebody white,
it--it seems as if white life
is more valuable
than Black life.
What do you think?
[applause]
Why is there
a city-wide manhunt
when there's crime taking place
in this community
every single day?
This was a real question,
and this was one
of the eternal questions
that Black people have
always carried.
We don't matter.
Well, the pain has been there
for a long time.
The Stuart case just
erupted something
that was already painful.
The treatment by the police
has existed
for many, many years,
and to have it intensify
as a result of this case
means that if people are
gonna be bold enough
to walk over us
on nationwide TV,
then we are bold enough to say
that we got a pain,
and we're not gonna
take it anymore,
and that you need to listen.
We are not ready to be healed,
that you gotta stop and listen
to what we have to say.
I kept on being asked
from then until today,
will we ever know
the real story?
And what's so interesting
about that,
so troubling about that,
is you all thought--
you, the Boston press--
you all thought you knew
the real story
when you had the story
of an--of an urban crime.
William "Willie" Bennett,
and according
to police sources,
the primary suspect
in the sh**ting
of Charles and Carol Stuart.
You thought you had
the real story, and that--
the reason why you thought
you had the real story
is that you filled in the dots.
[tense music]
You filled in those dots
with your own prejudices.
The Boston media around
this issue was on fire.
They were buying into,
I think, the racial narrative.
We have to remember
that this incident
was not far removed from
the Central Park r*pe
in New York.
♪ ♪
It was not far removed
from the issue
of wilding at the time,
where Black youth were accused
of going around the communities
and harassing white people.
And there were very few
Black reporters
at the time in Boston.
But the larger white media
sort of bought into
this narrative of--
around race and v*olence
and Black antipathy
towards white people.
The Stuart case is
the ultimate truth serum
of the city of Boston,
of who we were
and, in a lot of ways,
who we are.
The aftermath
and the commentaries
after Charles Stuart
k*lled himself
barely had the hint
of recrimination.
They still wanted
to believe it.
He was so believable.
Chuck Stuart nearly d*ed,
nearly d*ed.
That can't be
emphasized enough.
Everyone who spoke to him
in the hospital--
the police investigators,
the doctors, the nurses--
this man nearly d*ed.
We were shut off
by the Stuart family.
They said, "Don't come to us.
"Don't talk to us right now.
We don't have anything to say."
Many times we're criticized
for going too far
in pushing the family,
the grieving family.
In this case,
perhaps we should have.
Maybe the truth would have
come out earlier.
That's some family too.
The media has nothing to be
defensive about,
but more importantly,
nor do the police.
One of the more
egregious things that,
I think, occurred was that
in an effort
to essentially exonerate
the actions of the Boston
Police Department
in having zeroed in on Bennett,
the Boston Globe columnist,
Mike Barnicle,
wrote a column in which
he published Willie's IQ--
even the number,
he put the numbers in there--
and his grade school
report card marks
and referred to him
being in school records
as a "Mental Defective."
Not only did we all
mess up this guy,
but now that we know
he didn't do it,
to then say, "Well,
"the Boston Police aren't
r*cist for pursuing this.
"What did you
expect them to do?
Look at this guy."
You had to wonder, are--
you know, we're pouring salt
in the wounds.
In Boston, the question is,
who knew that Charles Stuart
had m*rder*d his pregnant wife
and was trying to blame it
on a Black man?
Two of his brothers knew.
But as NBC's
Fred Briggs reports,
the continuing speculation
has prompted denials
from other family members
and criticism
over local media coverage
of the sensational m*rder case.
It's so interesting.
When you recount the people
that Matthew told
about what he had put together
on the night of the m*rder,
that's part of the horror
of this case.
One of the things
that struck me was,
it was, you know,
word on the street was
Willie Bennett was--
a Black man was
the perpetrator.
Word on another street,
which is
where Chuck Stuart lived
and Matthew Stuart lived,
in fact,
understood that
that was not the case.
You order the world
with your generalizations,
and for the police officers,
they ordered the world
with generalizations
about Black people
that were unexamined.
Had they gone to Revere,
they would have found out
about this.
♪ ♪
NewsCenter 5 has learned
Stuart's brother Matthew
told police the g*n,
her handbag, and jewelry
would be found
in the Saugus River.
Police continue to search
in the waters
less than a mile
from Charles Stuart's
parents' home.
That's where police
now say they found
the purse, wallet, and makeup.
Barely an hour
into their renewed search,
Metro Police diver
Paul Hartley
found a silver-ish .38
revolver in the Pines River.
Officer Hartley recovered
a .38 snub nose revolver.
It certainly does look
promising as the g*n
that was allegedly thrown
into the river
on the night in question.
Two miles away,
Matthew Stuart
left his home
with no apparent reaction
to the recovery of the g*n.
Another twist
in the Charles Stuart case--
a g*n was apparently stolen
from the fur store
where he once worked.
When did Kakas Furs report
that the silver .38
was missing from the safe?
♪ ♪
Did anybody notice
prior to Chuck's su1c1de
that that g*n was not there?
Charles Stuart
was the manager
at Kakas Furs with access
to the safe and the g*n,
which wasn't reported missing
until after his su1c1de.
It's the shoddiest
police work
that I've ever experienced.
It's the mindset
of the men in charge
of the police department,
the district attorney's
office, city hall.
Boston was white,
Irish Catholic male,
and there's a box,
and their framework of ideas
exists within that box.
They were having
a hard time even thinking
that it could be anything
other than what Chuck said.
[sighs]
I'd like to claim I was.
I wish I had been that smart.
I wish I had known that much
at that moment.
But I can't say,
"Wait a minute.
What if the husband did it?"
I can't say I was that smart.
I don't know who can.
I was more skeptical
of what the police were doing
in propping up
"alleged" assailants,
particularly the Willie Bennett
that just didn't ring true.
Had they started looking
at other possibilities
on the murders,
they might have discovered,
for example, Charles Stuart
and the life insurance policies.
The source we talked to
close to the Stuart family
told him--
said that Stuart told him
the motive for the k*lling
was money,
the proceeds
from life insurance policies
on Carol Stuart naming Charles
as the beneficiary.
Today, officials searched
the Stuart house in Redding,
where they reportedly
removed a number of articles,
possibly including
insurance documents.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
They didn't even look
at the policies
until after he goes
off the bridge.
That should have been
standard operating procedure.
Always look
at the husband first.
♪ ♪
Wouldn't it also have been
routine, in a case like this,
to question
all of Chuck's family?
♪ ♪
One question dogging
the Stuart case all week is,
which brothers or sisters
of Charles Stuart
knew what he had done,
and when did they know it?
According to Michael Stuart's lawyer,
most knew nothing
until last week.
Michael was the exception.
Within three days
of the October 23rd homicide,
my client, Michael Stuart,
received information
from his brother Matthew.
And I say to you,
for purposes of this meeting
and for purposes
of the truth coming out,
he knew what Matthew told him
within three days
of the incident.
I am comfortable,
after an examination
of this entire scenario
and talking to my client,
that there is
no violation of law,
that he did not violate
any statute whatsoever,
that his hands are
legally clean.
You'd want to be
pushing the family,
and I can't help but think
if the police had pushed
Matthew Stuart,
I think Matthew Stuart
would have cracked.
I think he would have cracked
if anybody pushed him.
And what about Michael Stuart?
Wouldn't questioning
those brothers
have possibly caused them
to start cracking a lot sooner?
But nobody was asking
the questions.
When you're police,
your job is to investigate
all--all aspects.
Questions remain
about the Stuart case.
The most puzzling: why?
If Charles Stuart did
m*rder his wife,
what was the motive?
[ominous music]
Testing one, two, three, four.
♪ ♪
David MacLean was
a friend of Chuck Stuart's.
Right around Labor Day 1989,
the two of them go out
to dinner.
He told MacLean,
who obviously knew Carol,
that she was pregnant,
and she now had the upper hand
in the marriage,
and he, Chuck Stuart,
didn't want a baby.
He had these dreams
of buying a restaurant,
starting a restaurant.
She was going
to quit her job
to be a stay-at-home mom.
This isn't what he had planned,
and he wanted
to get rid of her.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
In normal circumstances,
if you got a lead like that,
a lead that Charles Stuart
may have asked an old friend
if he could get somebody
to k*ll his wife,
and you got that tip
in the midst of this,
I would say,
you would not only go
up to this guy's house,
you would drag his butt
down to the police station
for formal questioning
and let him know
that you were taking an
official statement from him.
You don't call
on the telephone.
No, you put him in the chair,
and you look him in the eye,
and you scare
the sh*t out of them,
like they scared Eric Whitney,
Dereck Jackson,
and others
in the Mission Hill project.
For some reason,
they turned their eyes away
from Charles Stuart at
the beginning of this case,
when it would have been common
police procedure
to look at
the surviving spouse.
They want everyone to believe
that over the past 48 hours,
they've uncovered
insurance policies
and diamond rings in rivers
where there are g*ns
and pocketbooks lying,
and suddenly,
they're interviewing people
over a six-hour period,
and the fact of the matter is,
they should have done that
a long time ago,
when people had paid for it.
Willie Bennett isn't
the only victim in this case.
The Black community
is a victim.
And people have to take
responsibility for it,
and someone has
to answer for it.
[tense music]
Matthew Stuart was
indicted today
in the Carol Stuart
m*rder case.
A Suffolk County grand jury
charged Charles Stuart's
brother on several counts,
including conspiracy
to obstruct justice.
Matthew Stuart's friend
Jack McMahon
was charged with accessory
after the fact of m*rder
and other crimes.
♪ ♪
When something as horrible
as this takes place,
you want the perpetrator.
You want to get the person.
They had the wrong person
in Willie Bennett.
The right person
committed su1c1de.
Matthew was
the last man standing.
Prosecutors in the Carol Stuart m*rder
have decided that
Charles Stuart's
brother Matthew,
the man who first
came to police
with inside information
and pointed the finger
at his own brother,
and family friend
John McMahon,
must now stand trial,
Matthew for
obstruction of Justice
and McMahon for being
an accessory to m*rder
after the fact.
He was indicted
for possession
of an unregistered firearm,
for receiving
stolen property,
which was a bag
that Chuck had given him,
for obstruction of justice--
a whole host of things.
But really, they never
developed any other evidence
with respect to him
than the stuff
that came out
of his own statement.
The Boston Police had been
snookered by Charles Stuart.
And I think there was
incredible pressure
to come up with
someone to justify
what the police had done.
So if you blame Matthew,
then you have someone to say,
"It wasn't our fault.
He was the one who misled us.
He was the one who--
who did it."
Matthew Stuart pleaded
guilty to charges
related to the 1989 m*rder
of his sister-in-law
Carol DiMaiti Stuart.
He was sentenced
to three to five years
for his role
in dispensing of the g*n
that Charles Stuart allegedly
used to k*ll his wife.
♪ ♪
Chuck Stuart would have
went all the way through
if his brother Matthew
didn't fold.
My uncle would have
d*ed in prison
if Charles Stuart didn't
k*ll hisself.
This would have been
the case of the century
that they solved.
I was happy he jumped,
'cause I was like,
"Now my uncle gonna go home."
No, Willie didn't go home.
- No. No.
- Why not?
Because they put this
daggone video store on him.
That--that's no relief.
When the focus
of the investigation
turned to Charles Stuart,
another man, Willie Bennett,
went from suspect to victim
in this case.
Ultimately, he was never
charged with the murders.
Instead, he was arraigned
for the robbery
of a Brookline video store.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
Willie was never charged
with the Stuart case.
We did do a search warrant
on his house
because Willie fit
the description
of an armed robber
the week before.
I think it was a video store
in Brookline.
♪ ♪
Now we know where he is.
He's not gonna flee
to Canada or--
so it just--
that's part of the process.
♪ ♪
The video store robbery
became a way
for them to hold him
while they were waiting
to build their case against him
for the Stuart murders.
And the problem
with that was,
there were discrepancies
between Willie Bennett's
appearance
and the descriptions
that the employees
in the video store gave.
Facial hair, no facial hair--
various things that I recall
did not really match up,
but he was found guilty.
♪ ♪
It was just so shady.
It was so weak.
It was such a weak case,
but he was Willie Bennett,
and they were gonna get him,
whatever way they could.
♪ ♪
There are so many families,
so many stories
that you can hear from people
about this kind of injustice
and then folks just
walking away and saying,
"You have to deal with it."
♪ ♪
That's heinous.
♪ ♪
Not only would there be
value in a public apology
for the Bennett family,
but there should be
some kind of offering
from the city
that would--
that would at least
go a little down the road
for justice for this family,
because they don't
have it right now.
They have nothing.
♪ ♪
Willie Bennett is
a metaphor in some ways
of how the Black community
is treated
by the institutions
in this city.
To know that there's probably
four generations of Bennetts
at the moment who can't get
away from all this ugliness,
it's just--
it's just hard to take.
It's hard to take.
[horn honking]
Growing up having
the last name Bennett,
it was just a feeling
of being afraid
to tell people my full name.
That was a big thing for me.
It was always, "Oh, Sharita."
"What is your last name?"
Then I had to think,
do I want to tell them
my last name?
No.
Or then it was always,
"Oh, you're a Bennett.
"Oh, you're no relation
to William Bennett,
the Stuart case?"
And it was always
a big hesitation.
Moving in. Moving in.
Watch the door,
watch the door.
How do you feel when you
see that newspaper story
this morning saying your son
is the number one
suspect in the Stuart case?
How do I feel?
Ask how she feels?
[speaking indistinctly]
It's not over.
I don't know.
Sometimes I just wish
I don't remember that night.
I had to be about six.
I think that's probably
the only thing I remember
from being six and seven.
I don't remember
anything else but that.
That's the only thing
that lingers with me.
They made me stand
outside, outside.
They made me stay outside
because--
What does it do
to your family
having to cope
with something like this?
Well, it's tearing
us all apart.
I know that.
I mean, I can't even go
out the door.
Because I honestly feel...
[sighs]
If none of that
would have happened,
I feel like my grandmother
would have lived longer.
I think that night just
took a toll on her.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
I'd say going to visit him
in jail when we were younger.
Oh, yeah, we asked
a lot of questions, so...
Way too many.
We wanted to know
who he was.
Everybody had two parents.
Where was he at?
So we definitely had questions.
We would always hear things
about him,
first off, even through school.
I knew that he wasn't a angel.
But my mom always
wanted us to know that
he was a good man.
I mean, he was stripped
away from his kids.
My father was taken
from his family.
It's hard for him to...
- Yeah.
Talk about the case.
It really is.
But we do know some details
and a lot of stuff
that he's definitely
spoken to us about.
♪ ♪
By no means was
my uncle an angel.
Everybody knows that.
He admits that.
But he was not a monster.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, what that man did
to his wife
was a monstrous act.
My uncle wasn't a monster.
As long as I've been
involved in this situation,
my uncle made sure that
none of us talked about it.
♪ ♪
He didn't want us
to talk about it
because his theory was,
when you know
you ain't do nothing wrong,
why you gotta explain
to anybody anything?
♪ ♪
But it always ate at me.
It always ate at me.
I wish I could actually
talk to Willie.
- To who?
- Willie Bennett.
I wish I could talk to him.
What would you say?
I'm sorry for the--
for lying on you.
You know, I've been wanting
to talk about this
for a long time.
You know,
I want to apologize to him.
You know what I mean?
You know, and for--you know,
for lying on their uncle.
And that's what it was:
a lie.
You know?
They knew then,
and they know now
that he had nothing
to do with it.
That's why these fools
never charged him.
And like I said,
I wish I could have--
I wish I could speak to Willie
so I can tell him,
you know, man, I'm--
for my part for lying on you,
I deeply apologize, man,
sincerely apologize.
You know, um...
but I was--you know,
I was a kid, man.
I was a kid scared
and kid being threatened
by these same dudes,
you know, these cops.
You know, um...
thank God things like
what Matthew said came out.
You know, so it--
it took the light off Willie immediately,
but the damage was done.
The assumption
the cops did the wrong thing,
that bothers me.
Oh, you're focused in
on this poor Black guy,
and it was a lie all this time.
I don't regret
the way I operated on the--
especially on the street.
Everything I did,
I did from here.
I--I wear my heart
on my sleeve.
Uh, everything I did,
I did because I believed
it was the right thing to do.
We all know that
there's a certain price
you have to pay
to wear the badge.
That's fact.
But we were overcharged
in this case.
The price was too much,
you know.
We were trying to do
the right thing
and was accused
of everything but.
We never got the chance
to finish the investigation.
We never got the chance to say
it wasn't Willie Bennett.
So we'll never know
who k*lled Carol Stuart.
This is a case in which
there's actual facts
in the differential treatment
of the Black community
and the differential treatment
of the white community.
We can see it.
The facts are
that they could have
solved the m*rder with
the testimony of David MacLean.
Okay.
An admission to a friend
about looking for someone
to k*ll his wife
doesn't go up the chain.
They did everything they could
to get Willie Bennett.
They had their chance.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
We're in the throes
of a story
that was cinematic
in every way.
All of the elements
were there--
the characters,
their families,
the city's history on race.
[crowd shouting]
Chuck Stuart didn't quietly go
into his basement
and consume a bottle
of sleeping pills and--and die.
He had to go to the single
most prominent bridge
in this area
and throw himself off
into the Mystic River.
And when he hit the water,
it was a "holy sh*t" moment
for this entire region
that we just got duped
by this guy
into believing the very worst
of what we are.
And we have spent years
figuring out
what went wrong
and how we can fix it.
♪ ♪
This was like a reckoning
for this city.
Now when you're the police,
you've gotta act
a little differently,
'cause now everybody remembers
the Stuart case.
So now you have to handle
yourself differently.
And now media has to handle
itself differently.
The grip that old Boston has
is starting to let go.
This city is
beginning to change.
I owe my career
to the Stuart case
in so many ways,
because looking at the way
the Black community was treated
in that city
and during that time,
I told myself,
"If you leave it to them,
"this is how you're going to be
perceived by everybody.
You need
to represent yourself."
♪ ♪
What's important to see
in Boston
is that there is change
occurring in the city.
The leadership in 1990
and the leadership today
is literally
like night and day.
We have our first
elected mayor
that is not white, not Irish,
not Italian, and not male.
Thank you for placing
your trust in me
to serve as the next
mayor of Boston.
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
You have a police department
that has had
two Black commissioners,
and the command staff
of that police department
is majority minority.
♪ ♪
I love the city.
I served it for 36 years.
♪ ♪
These cops today...
my heart cries for them.
♪ ♪
The city's gone.
The city ain't there no more.
We did things different
because we were allowed to,
not because we broke any rules.
We were allowed to do that.
The city of Boston
is not there anymore,
not the city I worked for,
not the city I grew up in.
Hallelujah
that it's not the same city
that he remembers it to be,
and I hope
it never will be that.
♪ ♪
That city had
very clear lines.
That city was fueled
by racial animosity.
That city kept Black people
in certain places,
kept them out
of certain power circles.
We have a long way to go,
but thank God
Boston is not the city
that Mr. Dunn remembered
from back in those days,
and you can tell him
I said that too.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]
01x03 - Reckoning
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TV doc follows the m*rder of Carol Stuart, and the investigation that followed, igniting racial tensions and targeting.
TV doc follows the m*rder of Carol Stuart, and the investigation that followed, igniting racial tensions and targeting.