On July 4, Lisa Craig and her partner Debby Riley were watching the fireworks display with their young daughters. Throughout the evening they were verbally harassed by a group of young people. “All night they’d walk by us and giggle and laugh, ‘Look at those dykes,’” Craig told the Boston Globe following the incident. “We were just in the park, watching the fireworks just like everyone else.”

At the end of the evening, while the couple and their children were buying ice cream, their five-year-old daughter was shoved by one of the teens who had been harassing them. Craig then confronted the group. She was punched, fell to the ground, and was then kicked in the head. Her pocketbook was stolen. Following the attack, Craig was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital where she underwent two surgeries to drain blood from her brain and received 200 stitches.

A Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) police officer arrived on the scene. According to Riley, the cop made no arrests, simply telling the assailants to “get out of here now before I arrest you all.” The Massport police report states: “The crowd, numbering approximately 20 teen-aged males and females, were hostile and verbally threatening the victim, her child, a friend of the victim, and her child.”

A Boston police report on the incident, cited in a community newspaper the East Boston Sun Transcript, differed radically from both the Massport police report and the story told by the victims of this attack. Making no mention of the hostile crowd yelling antigay slurs, the Boston police claimed that a young Latino woman had snatched Craig’s purse while she was standing at the ice cream truck, and ran off on foot. Craig tried to chase the woman, said the Boston cops, but she slipped and fell in the street. While Craig was on the ground, the report claims that the lone assailant kicked her once in the head and then ran off on foot.

On July 16, a 15-year-old girl was charged for the assault. Suffolk County district attorney Daniel Conley told the Boston Globe, “The juvenile struck the victim, Lisa Craig, with her fist, causing Ms. Craig to fall and strike her head on a granite curbing.”

Several candidates for the Boston City Council took part in the July 26 action, including Laura Garza, Socialist Workers candidate for City Council, at-large. “The attackers are on the wrong side of history as shown by the recent Supreme Court rulings upholding affirmative action and overturning sodomy laws,” Garza said in an interview. “By waging a fight around social causes, rights can be established regardless of who the lawmakers or judges are.”  
 
 
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