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Declaring the apology "just the beginning of a much longer
journey of accountability and action," Wu presented physical
copies of the apology at a press conference to Alan Swanson, one
of the two men, and relatives of the other man, Willie Bennett,
who was not present.
"To every Black resident, I am sorry not only for the abuse our
city enacted, but for the beliefs and the bias that brought them
to bear in the first place," said Wu, who became the first woman
and person of color elected mayor in Boston in 2021.
Several U.S. cities in recent years have confronted past wrongs
their criminal justice systems inflicted on residents of color.
New York City in 2014 settled a $41 million lawsuit with the
Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino teenagers wrongly
convicted of raping a white woman jogger in 1989.
Wu's apology comes after the release of an HBO series, "Murder
in Boston," that dissects the killing and its aftermath, which
exacerbated the city's long-standing racial tensions.
Swanson and Bennett were not formally charged with the murder of
the pregnant woman, Carol Stuart, but they were arrested and
publicly branded suspects after the actual culprit, Stuart's
husband, told police that she had been murdered by a Black man
who he said had abducted the couple, according to local news
reports.
When the husband's story later began to unravel, he stopped his
car on a local bridge and jumped off, killing himself. His
brother confessed to helping hide the gun used in the staged
murder.
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox echoed Wu's apology and
said that while his department had evolved in many ways since
1989, "we have a ways to go."
Bennett's nephew Joey said at the press conference that the
accusations had traumatized multiple generations of his family,
as well as Swanson and Bennett themselves.
"He hasn't been right since that case," Joey Bennett said at the
conference, gesturing at Swanson, who stood silently behind him.
"I hope we can move forward positively from this moment."
(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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