During a protest on Boston Common on Saturday night, the daughter of U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts was arrested and charged with assault after a police officer was hurt. The Boston Police Department said on its website that the 23-year-old would be charged in Boston Municipal Court.
Clark, who is the leader of the Democrats in the House, tweeted that her daughter, Riley Dowell, had been arrested.
“I love Riley, and this is a very difficult time in the cycle of joy and pain in parenting,” Clark wrote. “This will be evaluated by the legal system, and I am confident in that process.”
Clark has talked in public about how scared she is for her nonbinary child because of the prejudice against transgender people. Police said that they were called to the Parkman Bandstand Monument in the Boston Common after a report. Police say that they found a Melrose resident named Dowell vandalising the monument with spray paint and anti-police words.
During the arrest,
“a group of about 20 protesters began to surround officers while screaming profanities though megaphones on the public street causing traffic to come to a standstill,” police said, adding that “an officer was hit in the face and could be seen bleeding from the nose and mouth.”
Police said that Dowell was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, destroying or hurting personal property, and damaging property with graffiti or tagging.
This month, a police officer shot and killed a person in nearby Cambridge, which led to protests about the use of force. Police in Cambridge shot and killed Sayed Faisal, a 20-year-old student at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Police said he came at them with a kukri, which is a type of sword, and a “sponge round” that wasn’t meant to kill him didn’t stop him.
Clark is in her sixth term in the House. She is the representative for the 5th Congressional District in her state.
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