Black Spectators Say Police Targeted Their Boston Marathon Cheer Zone

Update 1 p.m. E.T.: The BAA released a statement on Thursday afternoon regarding the events that occurred at mile 21 of the marathon, which is included below.

A cheer zone at Monday’s 127th Boston Marathon was met with a sizable police presence after officers responded to complaints that the spectators were encroaching on the race course.

The PIONEERS Run Crew and TrailblazHers Run Co. set up a cheer zone between miles 20 and 21 of the Boston Marathon, in the town of Newton. The section of the course, known as Heartbreak Hill, is a popular area for cheer stations, as the hill is known as one of the toughest stretches of the course.

The Newton police, along with officers from the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council, arrived at the cheer zone after the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) received three complaints of spectators impeding runners on the course.

PIONEERS and TrailblazHers, which were both founded to promote running within communities of color and include many Black members, had a substantial presence at the cheer zone. On Monday, spectator Mike Remy’s footage of the cheer section, which showed police officers lining up between the cheer section and the road with their bikes, gained traction on social media. “Why [are we] surrounded by police?” Remy asked in the video. “Is it like this the whole way of the course?

In a joint statement sent to Runner’s World on Tuesday, the two running groups said, “​​Yesterday, Monday April 17th, 2023, was supposed to be a day that prioritized joy, remembrance, celebration, and community. Instead, our joy was diminished by over-policing and hostile encounters, both verbally and physically, at our cheer zone at mile 21.”

Aliese Lash, of the PIONEERS Run Crew, told WCVB that the group has cheered at that spot of the marathon for the past five years, with no complaints, but felt unwelcome by the police presence on Monday. “There [were] about 20 bikers in the police uniforms that were just blocking us from the race, but it definitely felt like an intimidation factor,” Lash said to WCVB.

Newton Police Department Chief John Carmichael issued a written statement responding to the events:

“After being notified by the BAA three times about spectators traversing the rope barrier and impeding runners, the Newton Police Department responded respectfully and repeatedly requesting that spectators stay behind the rope and not encroach onto the course.

“When spectators continued to cross the rope, [Newton police] with additional officers calmly used bicycles for a short period to demarcate the course and keep both the runners and spectators safe.”

On Thursday afternoon, Jack Fleming, the president and CEO of the BAA, said the organization met with the PIONEERS and TrailblazHers on Wednesday night to discuss the incident.

“They expressed to us their deep concerns that they were not given the chance to enjoy the day and celebrate their friends, families and all participants as they approached Heartbreak Hill—that is on us,” Fleming said in a statement. “It is our job, and we need to do better to create an environment that is welcoming and supportive of the BIPOC communities at the marathon.”

According to the BAA’s spectator rules, “Spectators are not allowed to enter the course, run alongside athletes, or impede athletes in any manner.”

Police at Mile 21: A Timeline

In a phone call with Runner’s World, Sidney Baptista, founder of the PIONEERS Run Crew, says around 11:15 a.m. on Monday, two police officers approached the cheer station at mile 21 with whistles and pushed people back. Later, at approximately 12:40 p.m., Baptista says he was running alongside runners on the side of the course, returned to the cheer zone, and popped a confetti cannon. “An officer proceeded to approach me, and grab me, and say, ‘Give me your ID,’ … ‘If you do that again, you’re going to go to jail.’”

Around 30 minutes later, Baptista says he went over and talked to the same officer. He says the officer apologized and didn’t realize what Baptista was trying to do, and the two agreed that if Baptista could help keep cheerers off the course, then there wouldn’t be a problem. “We came to an agreement that if I helped push people back, then that’d be fine,” Baptista says. “So it was respectful.”

Around 1:40 p.m., more officers showed up and began to flank both sides of the cheer zone, says Remy, who considers himself a “remote member” of the PIONEERS Run Crew. “That’s when I noticed that, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ we’re surrounded,” he tells Runner’s World. “It seemed to escalate quickly.”

Baptista says the officers barricaded themselves between the spectators and the course three separate times, for 15 to 20 minutes each. When Baptista asked the police why they were there, they said they were responding to complaints that members of the cheer zone were “encroaching” on the runners in the race, Baptista says.

Both running groups decided to keep cheering throughout the rest of the race, although some spectators, like Remy, went home after they felt uncomfortable with the police presence. Remy says he felt the interactions with the police left a sour note on an otherwise enjoyable marathon weekend and dissuaded him from inviting additional spectators to cheer.

“I’d love to share this with all my runner friends, all my triathlete friends, and even the non-athletic friends, but I can’t,” Remy tells Runner’s World. “I’d feel terrible inviting someone to come hang out, come take this in, and then have an experience like this.”

At 4:26 p.m., the police slowly began to exit, leaving four officers behind, says Baptista.

He says the spectators at the cheer zone were cheering hard for all runners—especially for members of their run clubs—but it was “nothing different than what you see anywhere else.”

Remy says he recognizes that the 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings might have necessitated a vigilant police presence on Monday, but he feels the response was an overreaction. “I totally appreciate [that],” he says. “I want to be safe. But we had confetti cannons, man. We had a DJ, we had cowbells, we were screaming.”

We will continue to update this story.