DOCUMENT: Celebrity, Crime

A Look Back At Mark Wahlberg's Stone Age

Actor was young racist who threw rocks at black kids

Mark Wahlberg

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Mark Wahlberg Affs

DECEMBER 23--Since Mark Wahlberg’s pardon request is limited to his criminal convictions for beating Vietnamese immigrants in his old Boston neighborhood, the actor does not have to formally address what cops described as his “stoning” of black schoolchildren.

Wahlberg and two teenage cronies were named in a 1986 civil injunction barring them from further harassment, intimidation, and threats against pupils who traveled through the trio’s Dorchester neighborhood.

As detailed in court filings, the Wahlberg crew’s attacks on the schoolchildren prompted an investigation by the Boston Police Department’s Community Disorders Unit. In seeking restraining orders against Wahlberg, Michael Guilfoyle, and Derek Furkart, state lawyers provided a Superior Court judge with affidavits from two of their young victims.

Kristyn Atwood, a nine-year-old girl from Roxbury, recalled how she and a female classmate were hit with rocks thrown by boys, one of whom said, “Look at all you black niggers.” Two of the assailants, the girl recalled, were wearing Boston Celtics shirts. The attack ended when the girls’s teacher flagged down an ambulance driver, who “chased the boys and they ran away.”

Atwood and her classmates were walking through Wahlberg’s neighborhood following a field trip to Savin Hill Beach. “I was scared when the boys were throwing rocks at us,” Atwood said. “I don’t think I would go back to the beach again.”

Shamele Jesse Coleman, 12, described a separate incident during which Wahlberg and his cohorts chased him and his two siblings. Coleman said that the teens yelled, “We don’t like black niggers in the area so get the fuck away from the area” and “Kill the nigger, kill the nigger” as they gave chase. Coleman said that the teens--two of whom had Mohawk haircuts--“each threw a rock at us.”

“I was scared,” Coleman stated. “My brother, sister and I began running and looking for a place to tell someone. As we got to Burger King, the group of males turned away. Then my brother, sister and I went home.

The following day, Coleman was part of the school group (including Atwood) that was stoned by Wahlberg and his pals. “They started to yell ‘Niggers’ and ‘Assholes’ at us,” Coleman recalled. The boy added that one rock hit Atwood, who “started crying.” Another rock, thrown by one of the Mohawked assailants, hit a second girl.

Boston cops assigned to investigate the attack on the schoolchildren traveled to Dorchester’s Savin Hill area and spotted “two white teenage males with Mohawk hairdos who fit the description of the suspects in this incident,” according to an affidavit sworn by Detective Edwin Kennealey.

After Wahlberg and Furkart identified themselves, Kennealey told them that police “had received a complaint regarding the stoning of a group of schoolchildren.” The teenagers then “admitted to being present when the incident occurred,” noted Kennealey.

In a follow-up interview at his Peverell Street home, Wahlberg fingered Guilfoyle as being with him and Furkart on the day of the attack on the black schoolchildren.

A subsequent court judgment enjoined Wahlberg from “assaulting, threatening, intimidating or harassing” Atwood, Coleman, and other children. He was also barred from the grounds of the Mather School, which the victims attended.

Though Wahlberg consented to the judgment, he was “not admitting to the allegations” made by Massachusetts officials, according to a court filing. (7 pages)