An East Boston woman says she's the victim of possible gang violence after getting assaulted outside her family's apartment.
Jennifer Gore-Cartagena said she was watching her children play basketball when a group of suspected gang members began taunting her and her family.
A war of words quickly escalated into a war of fists and weapons. Gore-Cartagena says she and a friend were knocked unconscious in the melee.
"I knew I was hit multiple times. I'm assuming I just kept getting up and I felt like I was being hit left right, left right," she told WFXT. "I have multiple fractures across my face I have cuts on my knees."
Her two children, ages 11 and 13, were also knocked to the ground and beaten by grown men.
“I see the one in the red, hooded sweatshirt. He had a knife and he was going to stab my granddaughter in the head and I’m like, ‘Are you [expletive] kidding me?’ I said, ‘Someone please help, someone call the police,’” Gore-Cartagena’s mother, Irene Gore said.
According to Gore, only one person stepped in to help while everyone else watched.
By the time police arrived, the suspected gang members were gone.
Now the family members say they no longer feel safe allowing the kids outside.
Gore-Cartagena said this kind of trouble has happened before at the Shore Plaza East housing complex, and she worries it might happen again.
“I spoke up, I tried to stick up for my children for playing in the neighborhood, playing outside, being with my kids constantly and this is what happens to me. I just don't know what to do,” she said.
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