Children Exposed to Horrific Scene: Media, Politicians All But Silent

In an embarrassingly underreported story, first responders were called to a public housing complex in South Boston because of reports of an individual who was in cardiac arrest. The responders allegedly found a dead person and a horrifying scene with sex toys and drugs where a black trans individual was dead on the floor. Even worse, four children between the ages of 5 and 10 were found cowering and hidden in a back room "surrounded by filth and a stench permeating the air, hidden by an adult man reportedly wearing a wig."

“This is sickening,” said At-Large City Councilor Michael Flaherty. “I was informed by people at the scene that there were drugs, alcohol, sex toys all around the apartment as well as a dead body on the floor.”

Flaherty, Public safety chairman on the council, told the Herald the individual died "from an apparent overdose" and that the "man wearing a wig claiming to be the father" of the children was found in the back bedroom.

The Fire Department reported the following:

"The apartment was in extremely unsanitary conditions. Approximately 6 adults, who appeared to be males, were seen in the apartment," they wrote, saying they subsequently found, "four children in the back bedroom being hidden by an adult male from first responders. All of the adult parties were being uncooperative and did not provide helpful information. All adults present denied having children inside the apartment."

Gee. I wonder why they were hiding the children? Was it because they were worried about being caught or were they worried about the things they were exposing those innocent children to? Whatever the reasons were, there must have been some sliver of knowledge they were doing something wrong. At least I pray they did because it offers hope to those children.

Later reports from the Boston police appeared in a posting on bpdnews.com

The police wrote, "The parents and the officers who responded felt it was better for the children to stay in another room with one of the parents and took steps to avoid having the children see the deceased." First of all, are we now saying the first responders lied in their initial report? Secondly, if they were taken to the back room after the death, where were they before? I am guessing the children saw and experienced plenty.

Boston City Councilor at Large Michael Flaherty seemed to confirm the squalid conditions found by the firemen. He said they were "deeply concerned about the health and safety of the children."

And, according to the Boston Globe, Mayor Wu seemed to waffle on the allegations about the conditions in the South Boston apartment. Wu commented:

"We will do whatever it takes to protect our children in the city. But that means not fueling conspiracy theories or rumors that are not based on the facts of what happened here." At least Governor Maura Healey stated it was a "terrible situation."

I have to hand it to Aidan Kearney who is the Senior Editor for TurtleBoy Daily News. He seems to be the only person out there questioning why this story is not on the front page. He says he has tried to investigate the matter and has put in a records request for the incident report, one he knows will probably never materialize because "the City of Boston routinely violates public record laws by not responding for months."

Kearney also states that "only two City Councilors have spoken" about the discovery. All while Mayor Wu was tweeting about "repairing" harm to the Black community and Julia Meijia celebrated Juneteenth.

Turns out Kearney also was able to identify the "man" who overdosed was identified as Giovanni "Tabatha" Murray and had a "long criminal record, suffered from mental illness and turned to drugs." Still crickets from the mainstream media.

According to Kearney, Kiara Payne and Douglas Jayden, are the transgender couple who live in the South Boston apartment where Murray died. They are allegedly complaining that "DCF stole their kids," according to Kearney.

Okay. I will stop here to make a few comments and ask a few questions. As I think about these small children, I wonder many things, some of which I will ponder here. Why were these small children living with an alleged mentally ill, drug addict? How involved was CPS in their care? What were neighbors doing? Did they not notice the comings and goings of these children and adults? Why isn't the national media talking about this? Why isn't every local elected official enraged? Why are there so many apparent attempts to re-write the story as reported by the initial responders? Are we so broken with identity politics that we cannot even protect our children?

Our nation is nothing without healthy children and families. Healthy means healthy,—mind, body and soul. The fact that we are somehow afraid to speak up on their behalf may even be more horrifying than the incident itself. The fact that we bury these incidents almost certainly means those children will continue to suffer. It also means other young children will continue to be subjected to horrific scenes like the one on June 17 in South Boston.

In the end, this has very little to do with the notion that these people were transgender. When you get to the essence of the issue, it really is about protecting the innocent child. We simply cannot allow our culture or our identity politics to cloud our response to events like these. Four children, ages 5-10, live in a world where they are subjected to drugs, sex toys, and goodness knows what else cannot be reliably protected. In what universe is this possibly okay? The saddest part is that these four children are but the tiniest fraction of those who continue to be exposed to similar experiences. We really must do better.