On Friday night, Boston Police Officer John Moynihan stopped a car on Humboldt Avenue in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. One of the car's occupants, Angelo West, apparently exited the vehicle and shot Officer Moynihan in the face. Other officers at the scene returned fire and killed West. A bystander was also injured in the exchange of gunfire.
"Black lives matter, but so do the lives of our civil servants, our police officers," the Rev. Emmett G. Price III said Monday on Boston Public Radio. "I think that this is a moment where we need to also show law enforcement officers — particularly those that are good cops — that we support them, too."
After the shooting, some protestors took to Boston streets because Angelo West was a black man killed by Boston police officers. Recent high-profile cases in Ferguson, Missouri, New York, and at the University of Virginia have ratcheted up tension over possible mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of largely-white law enforcement officers.
Protestors in Roxbury (contains strong language)
"I've heard a couple folks criticizing what's been going on," the Rev. Irene Monroe said Monday. "We really do need the elders in our community to come and talk to these young men and women. [...] This wasn't a case like the young man at UVA, that had a clean record, a pristine record."
"You have a community who has suffered so much for so long, here in Dorchester, and so anytime you have a scenario it kinds of brings up the last time it happened," Price added.
'You have a community who has suffered so much for so long. Any time you have a scenario it brings up the last time it happened.'
Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross was among the officers looking to placate irate protestors. In a video that has since been removed from Youtube, Superintendent Gross explained that Officer Moynihan was shot at close range, apparently without provocation, by West.
"As the officer is taking him out the car, [West] shot the officer in the face, and the officers returned fire. That was it, short and sweet," Gross said in the video.
Price said he appreciated Gross's effort to explain the situation to protestors.
"What you have is broken trust here."
Officer John Moynihan is expected to survive after undergoing surgery at Boston Medical Center.
>> The Rev. Emmett G. Price III is a professor of music at Northeastern University. Price is the author of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture. The Rev. Irene Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist who writes for Huffington Post and Bay Windows. You can hear the two every Monday at 1 PM on Boston Public Radio.
