Downtown has seen a noticeable uptick in one-off violent crimes and congregate drug use over the past month. But after a series of meetings, neighborhood leaders say the city and Boston Police are doing a good job to get on top of it.
Last month, five people were shot within a half-mile radius of the Tremont Street corridor and Boston Common. This month, there have been stabbings in South Station and on Park Street near North Station. In response to this sudden apparent increase in individual violent crimes, the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association (DBNA) spearheaded a push towards reworking Downtown’s approach to public safety.
In early August, it held an emergency meeting of the One Downtown Task Force, which was formed in late 2024 during a period of increased public safety concerns and outdoor drug use. Rishi Shukla, the head of the DBNA, said that meeting resulted in an appropriately active response from the city.
“When you have a series of issues that we’ve seen in Downtown Boston over the last six weeks, it just requires a different level of response and urgency to address the perception of fear that I think a lot of residents and folks coming through the neighborhood are feeling,” Shukla said. “We’ve seen a recalibration from Boston Police in particular, in terms of their staffing and visibility, which is a welcome pivot.”
The meeting identified a series of hotspots along the Tremont Street corridor, largely concentrated in the northeastern quadrant of the Boston Common. Shukla said that after the meeting, police had especially begun patrolling that area. “The pace is good. I don’t have any complaints about what’s been going on over the last two weeks. I think the bigger challenge is just making sure we can actually maintain that level of urgency and resourcing over the next several weeks to get us through October.”
Michael Nichols, head of the Downtown Boston Alliance, which represents businesses in the area, said he had seen a marked improvement since the first batch of public safety meetings, and that he viewed the short string of violent incidents as a dip following the high-positivity events of the summer, rather than indications of a longer-term problem.
“There was a short period of time where it was frustrating to see the one-off incidents, when we feel like it’s a really safe neighborhood,” Nichols said. “In my opinion, Downtown Boston is the safest major city downtown in America. That status doesn’t mean that you never have an issue, and any incident is one too many, and yet I think many of us feel like resources were deployed after those incidents, and the area has gotten dramatically safer again.”
Nichols also pointed to the visible increase in police patrols as one of the resources that had helped improve the climate of the area already.
But that hasn’t convinced everyone. City Councilor Ed Flynn, who represents the Downtown and frequently speaks out about public safety issues, says that kind of pressure shouldn’t be placed on police officers who are already working 16-hour days.
“When you put someone in a position to work 16 hours, to me that means you don’t respect them and you don’t support them,” Flynn said in a phone call. “I know it’s controversial to say that, but if you valued your workers, you would give them time off. When someone is working in a very stressful job, after 16 hours, they’re not making sound judgments. They’re just too tired. I think it’s unhealthy, and that’s when mistakes are made.”
In a letter to Council President Liz Breadon last week, Flynn demanded an emergency council hearing to formulate a plan for public safety.
“The Boston Police Department has longstanding issues of understaffing, overstretched resources, forced overtime and looming retirements,” he wrote. “The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association recently noted that the Department is down roughly 600 officers. Boston Police Officers express to me that they are overwhelmed with the recent rise in violent crime and lack of respect for police officers and their families. It is critical that we both hire hundreds of police officers and work closely with state and federal partners as well.”
Flynn said in a phone call he would encourage the city to consider any possible methods to alleviate the burden on current officers, from allowing retired officers to run patrols, to waiving the residency requirement, to bringing in state police or even seeking support from the Massachusetts National Guard, which he called for after the most recent North Station stabbings.
“You would need to have conversations, certainly, with Boston Police to see if there is any way to play a supporting role,” Flynn said. “And if there isn’t, then there isn’t. But you just can’t ignore the crisis at hand.”
To continue the public safety push, Shukla said the DBNA has planned meetings with retailers, developers, property owners, residential and hotel security teams, and shelters, as well as directly with the city’s 311 team and its departments of Transportation and Public Works. These meetings, he said, would give each group a specific goal to work on to stave off more public safety issues through the rest of the year.
The DBNA will run its annual resident survey to gather perspectives on public safety in September. The One Downtown Task Force will plan to meet again in January 2027.
