In Boston, there is a lot of talk about how the city’s murder rate is collapsing.
But not every community in Boston is feeling safer. Most of Boston’s murders are taking place in historically Black neighborhoods, in an area some call, “The Murder Triangle.”
“I didn’t even make it to the 6th grade before I had to go to a friend’s funeral,” Sheryle Cox told me.
“How many funerals do you think you’ve been to since then?” I asked
“I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t count,” she said.
On New Year’s Day 2023, violence struck too close to home for Sheryle Cox.
Her cousin, Jymal Cox, was shot to death in Mattapan where he was working security at a New Year’s Eve party.
“I believe he was caught in the crossfire,” Sheryle said. “There was some other people shooting. They did not intend to shoot him. But, unfortunately, he was the one who caught the bullet.
Jymal Cox was Boston’s first murder of 2023.
“As the murder rate goes down, we still find a disproportionate amount of murders located in what we call the Murder Triangle,” Reverend Kevin Peterson, founder of the New Democracy Coalition told me.