On June 26, 2021, 28-year-old Nathan Allen stole a plumbing truck and crashed into a building on Cross and Shirley streets before 3 p.m. Allen proceeded to get out of the crashed truck and shot two Black people who were identified as David Green, a 58-year-old retired Massachusetts State Police officer, and Ramona Cooper, a 60-year-old Air Force veteran who still worked with the military. Allen was shot by police and sent to the hospital where he died

The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

Investigators later found a journal kept in his apartment that said, “Racism is healthy and natural. And holding it in is bad for you,” which Allen wrote on June 24th in a hateful entry that was filled with more racist and antisemitic statements.

Much of his writing was disturbing. Allen spewed hatred about Black people and claimed that the white race is the superior race. He also went on about how women don’t understand men.  He was using slurs and advocating violence towards Black people. He called white people “apex predators” and claimed that, “Whites in the USA are waking up and men need to kill things.” He then proceeded to draw swastikas in his journal, a hate symbol used by the Nazi party during the Holocaust.

Between 2020 and 2021 we have seen an increasingly large amount of hate crimes unfold. The crimes that were committed by Allen were racially motivated, and two innocent Black people suffered from his actions. Winthrop is a small community that will never tolerate racism and hatred, and must fight to remember the victims and stop the disease of racism from spreading.