Victims' Families Take Part In 20th Annual Mother's Day Walk For Peace
BOSTON (CBS) -- Charmaine's 16-year-old son was shot and killed outside his girlfriend's house in 1997, ending a two-and-a-half-year stretch where no juvenile was murdered in the city of Boston. On Mother's Day, she walks with hundreds from Roxbury to Dorchester as part of the annual Mother's Day Walk for Peace.
"I just feel so bad for all the mothers that are going through this," she told WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Karyn Regal. "Every time another child gets murdered, it hits home all the time, I can just connect with the families."
The walk, now in its 20th year, launched from Town Field in Dorchester and Madison Park High School in Roxbury Sunday morning, before culminating in a peace rally at City Hall Plaza in downtown Boston.
Anthony Smalls was a father of nine and just 40 years old when he was shot and killed in Dorchester in 2010. His daughter Jessica participated in the walk this year.
"Everybody's still coping, coping in their different ways," she said. "Even though it's been 5-6 years now, the pain and all that is still very real."
At the rally, Mayor Marty Walsh spoke out against the "senseless violence" that had taken so many of the participants' loved ones away. Police Commissioner William Evans, Attorney General Maura Healey, State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick also participated in the walk.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Karyn Regal reports