Road-rage report against DA Rollins under AG’s review
Attorney General Maura Healey’s office is now looking into the alleged roadrage confrontation between District Attorney Rachael Rollins and a woman in a Dorchester parking lot.
Healey’s office confirmed they had received a report from Katie Lawson, the woman who filed a citizens report with Boston Police after an alleged confrontation with Rollins in the South Bay shopping area. Healey’s office said they are investigating the complaint.
Rollins’ office on Thursday said, “We have said all we are going to say on this matter and await the Attorney General’s findings regarding the civil rights complaint that was filed.”
Lawson’s original report to police, first shared by local blog Turtle Boy Daily News, alleges Rollins cut her off in the parking lot on Christmas Eve, yelled, “Today is not the day to try me!” then activated emergency lights before driving off and failing to stop for a red light.
Rollins, appearing Jan. 8 on “The Howie Carr Show,” said Lawson was “driving very erratically” in the parking lot and screeched to a halt before jerking forward and almost hitting her car. Rollins said after multiple beeps she used her emergency alert and said, “Stop, you’re in the wrong flow of traffic,” after which she left. She added that South Bay tends to be a “haven” for emotionally disturbed people and people with substance use disorder.
Rollins then on Friday night tweeted, “Earlier today a weird truck was in front of my house. When I walked out, a masked man got out of the car, mumbling something & quickly opened his trunk. He grabbed something large & dark & turned to me. I was terrified. My children were there. They were terrified. This is unreal.”
It turned out that the man was a Boston 25 cameraman who’d shown up with a producer at her house. The cameraman recorded Rollins yelling at the producer and dismissing Lawson’s complaints as the “rantings of a white woman.”
“I’ll call the police on you and make an allegation, and we’ll see how that works with you,” Rollins told the producer, according to footage of the encounter, which the TV station aired in its minute-and-a-half entirety. “I will have you arrested — I swear to God.”
She said she was worried about her kids amid the current tense political climate. She yelled, “My children are going to be hurt.”
Rollins tweeted on Saturday, “Yesterday’s incident in front of my house involved an unmarked media vehicle. Thank you for the acts of support. My children, like many of yours, are scared & worried about what they saw at our Capitol. Everyone is on edge, including myself. But my little girls & I are safe.”
Rollins, elected DA in 2018, has at times been controversial, first running on progressive positions including having a list of minor crimes she generally intends not to prosecute. That has angered many conservatives and people in law enforcement, though she’s also frustrated liberals by seeking to keep people on weapons charges locked up during the pandemic.
Rollins, the first Black female DA in the state, is currently in the running to be President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, a process which is ongoing.