City Council President Ed Flynn is calling for the Boston Public Health Commission to conduct an investigation, after authorities discovered a 2-year-old boy spent a night in the violent, drug-ridden Mass and Cass zone.
The toddler was seen inside a car parked in a lot on Massachusetts Avenue last Thursday night, with his mother asleep behind the wheel, but it wasn’t until past 8 a.m. the following morning that a street outreach worker alerted authorities about a woman with a “baby” on Southampton Street, a Boston Police report states.
Southampton and its surrounding areas, the report notes, “are known for the avid use of drugs, illegal drug sales, human trafficking and violence.”
“I think it’s a troubling development,” Flynn told the Herald Monday. “I want to first acknowledge the professionalism of our first responders, but having a child in the Mass and Cass zone is horrific, and it’s certainly child endangerment.”
Flynn sent an email to Dr. Bisola Ojikuto, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, on Monday night, requesting an investigation into the matter, to determine how long and how often the child has been there.
He also wants to know whether this was an isolated incident or if other children have been found in the area, including underneath the tents on Atkinson Street.
The BPHC deferred comment to the Department of Children and Families, which has taken custody of the child, and to the report provided by Boston Police. A spokesperson for DCF said it has received a 51A child abuse or neglect form for the incident, and “is investigating.”
According to the police report, the 34-year-old woman stated she was on Southampton Street last Friday morning because her car was towed from a McDonald’s parking lot, at 870 Mass. Ave., the night before.
The woman claimed to have spent much of the night with her son at Boston Medical Center, to stay warm and charge her phone. She said she left the hospital at approximately 6:30 a.m., and headed toward Topeka Street to get “dosed” at a methadone clinic, the Boston Comprehensive Treatment Center, the report states.
Police were informed by security officers, however, that the woman was seen on Atkinson Street last Thursday night, “pushing a stroller with a baby inside of it.” She was also seen at the nearby Alltown gas station, “nodding off” by a gas tank the following morning, at 7:35 a.m., with her child present, the report states.
Officers had also been alerted to a woman who was apparently asleep behind the wheel of her car in the McDonald’s parking lot shortly after 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Her car was towed for an expired registration, the report states.
It wasn’t until past 8 a.m. the following morning that the woman and toddler’s presence at Mass and Cass was called into authorities by a street outreach worker, the report states.
Tania Del Rio, the city’s Mass and Cass coordinator, said at a Monday Council hearing that the incident was called in “as soon as staff laid eyes on the child.” He spent the night there, she said.
The woman was questioned by police and a fire lieutenant in front of the nearby fire department headquarters on Southampton Street. She had previously been accompanied by a man “who was under the influence of an unknown substance,” Fire Lt. Gary Cullinane told officers.
The man, identified as the boy’s father, was not on scene when police arrived. Albert Giannini, 37, was later arrested on two active warrants, charging him with operating under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of a Class A drug, a category that includes heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and LSD.
At the time of the interview, police and fire personnel noted how cold it was. The toddler was wearing only a single layer, despite the temperature being between 40 and 45 degrees, the report states.
Due to the inconsistencies in the woman’s story, police could not confirm if the child had “spent the night in adequate shelter,” the report states.
“It is very disturbing to me that a child was exposed to the unsafe and unhealthy environment on Atkinson Street for an extended period of time before authorities knew and stepped in to remove them,” City Councilor Erin Murphy told the Herald. “It highlights the public health and safety emergency that has been happening in the area for a very long time now.”
Flynn said Atkinson Street was “festered with mice and rats” when he and Murphy walked through the area two weeks ago to get to the Southampton Street shelter, and he was “troubled by the open-air drug market and drug use in public.”
There are “stabbings, shootings, drug dealings, rapes and sex trafficking happening all the time and it needs to come to an end,” Murphy added.
“We can no longer ignore it and we need to use all of our public health and first responder supports to stop another child from being down on Mass and Cass,” she said.
