BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston Police are investigating after 91-year-old civil rights leader Jean McGuire was stabbed multiple times while walking her dog in Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain Tuesday night.
Police said McGuire, who was walking her dog at the time, was stabbed on Playstead Street at 8:30 p.m. Found unconscious, Boston EMS transported the victim to a nearby hospital, where she has been in stable condition.
The victim’s sister, Jeriline Brady McGinnis, confirmed that McGuire, the first Black woman on the Boston City School Committee and the founder of the METCO program, was the victim, and that she will likely need a blood transfusion and surgery on her arm.
“For 40 years, she’s been walking her dogs in that park and nothing’s ever happened,” Brady McGinnis said, calling the attacker a “coward.”
“40 years – nothing.” she said.
Brady McGinnis was able to speak with her sister as she recovered, later learning that the dog, Bailey, defended her owner, as well.
“Jean informed me that when (the suspect) knocked her down, she knee’d him and the dog went on the attack immediately,” she explained on Wednesday, while standing with the dog, who was back home while its owner recovered in the hospital.
“You did a good thing – I’m proud of you,” she said as she pet Bailey.
“I am disgusted and angry to know that an elder in our community had to fear for her safety going about her daily routine, walking her dog,” said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, reacting to the attack on Wednesday.
As the investigation continues, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden visited the activist and advocate for children, and shared his own thoughts on the matter as well.
“When I walked into the room, she said ‘Oh, look at you: all grown up!” Hayden said. “This one’s personal for me. She knows my dad. Known her family for a long time.”
Hayden said McGuire was “as positive and vibrant and upbeat as anyone who knows Jean McGuire would expect her to be,” even while recovering.
7NEWS interviewed McGuire in 2007 about violence in the city, and at the time, she said that deaths around her Roxbury neighborhood were common, and added that someone was robbed in front of her home in broad daylight shortly before the interview.
A beloved figure in the community, among other accomplishments, McGuire helped establish the METCO program, which has assisted in bussing Black youth from the city to suburbs for better educational opportunities.
‘I’m just at a loss for words,” Brady McGinnis said. “She’s a good person. This woman bothers nobody. I mean, she’s 91 years old.”
A vigil was later held for McGuire at Central Park Wednesday evening.
Police said the suspect is believed to have also suffered injuries in the altercation to his hands or arms.
Officials are asking anyone with information to contact Boston Police.
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