Image courtesy of Louis L. Murray JrBy Juan Perfetti
A group of people showed up at the District B-3 Police Station (Dorchester-Mattapan) to protest the to-be-implemented vaccine mandate for city employees and the “vaccine passport” to discriminate against COVID-19 unvaccinated people in Boston.
In the police station, located in Dorchester, was the Boston Mayor Michelle Wu visiting officers to “most of all say thank you and happy holidays,” as the Mayor said in a video distributed online by Louis Murray. The meeting at the police station was not disclosed to the press in the Mayor’s public schedule.
Outside the police station, the multiethnic and multiracial group of protesters was raising their concerns about the vaccine mandates and “vaccine passports” with signs and chants.
Much of the #Boston media still wearing footie pajamas @TheKuhnerReport @WBZNightside @G_CURLEY @HowieCarrShow They choose health not @MayorWu CONTROL pic.twitter.com/i6E9oNAHOo
— Louis L. Murray Jr (@LouisLMurrayJr1) December 23, 2021
“Choice versus control,” protesters repeatedly voiced while carrying signs like “my body, my choice,” and “we will not comply.”
“We back the Blue, not Michelle Wu. We don’t need no forced vaccines,” was one of the chants also expressed.
Inside the station, a pregnant public employee identified as Officer Gianna Mullane complained to Mayor Wu that she is not planning to take the vaccine because it could hurt her baby in the womb. Therefore she will lose her job because of the mandate imposed by Mayor Wu.
Officer Mullane asked Mayor Wu if she would sign a document taking responsibility in case something happens to her and other pregnant public employees or their unborn babies if they take the vaccine. At the moment, there was no answer from Mayor Wu about the request from the employee.
The crowd of protesters included public employees, firefighters, police officers, union members, business owners, and members of the Boston First Responders United and Make Americans Free Again of Massachusetts (MAFA) organizations.
On December 20, 2021, the Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu announced that starting on January 15, 2022, the city will be implementing the highly controversial and discriminatory measure of requiring all people to show “proof of vaccination against COVID-19” (vaccine passport) to enter restaurants, gyms, and entertainment venues.
The mandate forces businesses to require potential clients to show their vaccine status and forces employees of those businesses to be vaccinated.
“Requiring a [vaccine] passport would have a disproportionate impact on poor communities of color,” said on August 4, 2021, City Councilor and acting Mayor Kim Janey in a conversation with WBUR after criticizing the COVID-19 vaccine passport mandated in New York City by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. “During slavery, post-slavery, as recent as you know what immigrant population has to go through here (…) There’s a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers,” Kaney also stated previously.
