Race clash near Boston

Press, 2 August 1977, Page 9

Race clash near Boston

5 NZPA-Reuter Boston s -; Hundreds of armed and i helmeted policemen had to f form a human ' barrier to keep 1500 name-calling! 1 whites away from a small j - group of blacks at racially- j ; i troubled Carson Beach in r South Boston on Sunday. > “If we hadn’t separated them, it would have been! t! mayhem," said Police Cap-; /tain John O’Brien. ' The incident was the third /in four days at the beach,; 51 located between pre-i i dominantly white south Boston and the predominantly ■ black Columbia Point hous-j I! ing project. The police had ordered all:

whites to leave the beach after a black man was I pushed by a group of whites i standing in shallow water. ■ About 300 officers, many ;!of them on horseback and .motor-cycles, then formed a II v. ral hundred yards i long down a highway bordering the beach to keep I I whites from returning to the i area. At least seven whites were arrested and charged I with assaulting a policeman, ifailing to disperse, and dis-; orderly conduct after the beach had been declared offlimits to all but the 100 ! blacks who had come to swim. i The seven whites wer®

i taken to the city's detention > centre. They were to be ar- ; raigned in the South Boston District Court. Police Superintendent I Lawrence Carpenter, ranking i officer on the scene, said ■ about 1000 whites who had • been on the beach when the > I trouble began “were quiet Iv ' asked to leave.” “We gave them five min-; > utes to disperse, then we I moved in” Inspector Carpen- . ter said. ( The crowd behind the! "police barrier, which later I ’ swelled to between 1500 and ( ISOO shouted insults at the police and racial epithets at “the blacks on the beach. |