BOSTON (WHDH) - Local leaders are calling for change after police say a woman was hit and killed by a Bellingham driving under the influence near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.
Security video shows the car whipping around the Theodore Glynn Way in Roxbury and crashing into three people who were walking by Saturday morning. The impact was so forceful that 59-year-old Lisa Vadeboncoeur died and the two other pedestrians were injured, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney.
The crash happened just steps away from the troubled area along Mass. Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard that houses people struggling with drug addiction and homelessness.
“It’s life without boundaries, life without expectations, open using, open dealing, public defecation,” said the district’s representative, Boston City Councilor Frank Baker. “In the last six months, we have had six murders down there. For the past eight years, we haven’t had six murders.”
This latest death is also linked to drugs. The driver, 46-year-old Kevin McCaffrey, pulled over after hitting the pedestrians and a police report revealed he was “witnessed falling asleep and nodding off” as detectives tried to interview him.
According to them, McCaffrey admitted, “he had taken cocaine prior to operating the vehicle to try to keep him awake.”
He was ordered to be held without bail in the Roxbury Division of Boston Municipal Court Wednesday on charges of motor vehicle homicide by operating under the influence of drugs, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
“Ms. Vadeboncoeur and the two other individuals injured in this crash were standing well off the side of the road when they were struck. My office has been in contact with each of the victims and the loved ones of Ms. Vadeboncoeur. We will continue to be available to provide them and the two surviving victims with the support and resources they may need and that they deserve,” District Attorney Rachael Rollins wrote in a statement.
With emotions running high, Baker said, “addiction runs in my family. No one says I want to live on Mass. and Cass. It’s your decisions over many years — that’s your lot.”
On Tuesday, Boston Mayor Kim Janey announced plans to remove the tents that line the area in the hopes that it will solve some of the problems there.
“We have to change the situation down there. We have to change the situation down there,” Baker said. “That’s the bottom line.”
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