Edward’s Winthrop Campaign Headquarters Vandalized Monday

On Monday afternoon a group of staffers working on Senate Candidate Lydia Edwards’s campaign were inside Edward’s Winthrop headquarters when they heard a noise outside.

The volunteers peeked outside to see a man ripping campaign signs off the front of the building at 130 Shirley St. The staffers decided to lock the door and when the man began pounding on the door they fled to the headquarters’ back room and hid until the man left.

Edward’s, who is running for the First Suffolk & Middlesex senate seat that includes East Boston, Winthrop, Revere, the North End and other parts of Boston and Cambridge, was not there during the incident but filed a police report with the Winthrop Police.

“Earlier today (Monday), signs were torn down from our campaign headquarters at 130 Shirley St. in Winthrop,” said Edwards in a statement. “We have filed a police report to document the incident and we are taking additional security precautions to keep our staff safe. It is unfortunate that we have been forced to take these safety measures. We know this kind of behavior is not a reflection of the people of Winthrop and the communities in this district, but it will not be tolerated. I speak up today in the hopes that this is an isolated incident.  The signs are going back up, we are hitting the doors and we are not deterred in the slightest.”

Edwards, who became the first person of color elected to Boston’s District 1 City Council seat in 2017, previously ran for the senate seat in 2016 but lost that bid to Joe Boncore of Winthrop. Boncore later became an ally of Edwards and endorsed her candidacy for Boston City Council.

The location of Edwards’s headquarters and the fact she is a person of color sent a chill down the spine of her Winthrop supporters who offered words of support on social media. 

In June, Winthrop resident Nathan Allen crashed a box truck into a house on the corner of Shirley and Cross Streets and then executed two Black residents–just two blocks from Edwards’s current headquarters.

It was later revealed that Allen, who was killed by police, most likely targeted Air Force veteran Ramona Cooper and retired Massachusetts State Police trooper David Green because they were black..