https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-fourth-graders-ll-accept-pardon-apology.html
EXCLUSIVE: 'Kill the n*****! Kill the n*****!' Teacher reveals how Mark Wahlberg and 'thug' friends chased, taunted and hurled rocks at her fourth-graders - but she'll accept the pardon for an apology
- Mary Belmonte tells MailOnline how a class outing to play in the sand turned into a nightmare for her mostly African-Americans students
- Two of the little girls in her care - one black and one white - were hit in the head by a barrage of stones
- Kristyn Atwood, one of the girls, does not think it is fair that Wahlberg should get his conviction overturned
- MailOnline has discovered that one of the trio - Michael Guilfoyle - is now a senior Boston firefighter
- Mary would like a face-to-face apology from the man who was once a racist street tough
By
Martin Gould In Westwood, Massachusetts For Mailonline
Published: 14:52 EST, 15 December 2014 | Updated: 08:13 EST, 16 December 2014
1.5k shares
170
View comments
For fourth-grade teacher Mary Deshaies, it was the scariest thing she had ever faced. As she walked her class back from an outing to the beach a gang of thugs suddenly attacked them shouting racial slurs and hurling rocks.
Two of the little girls in her care - one black and one white - were hit in the head by the barrage of stones. Others panicked and ran as she tried to protect them. One of the boys attempted to defend her. 'Don't you hurt my teacher,' he yelled at the assailants.
Now, nearly 30 years later Mary Belmonte, as she is now known, is having to relive the incident. For one of those louts was a teenage Mark Wahlberg and now he is begging for an official pardon for his actions on the mean streets of Boston's Southside.
Scroll down for video
+9
+9
Lesson learned: Mary Belmonte, formerly Mary Deshaies, agrees that Mark Wahlberg should receive the pardon from outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick — although she would like a face-to-face apology from the man who turned from a racist street tough into one of Hollywood's hottest actors of his generation
+9
Mean street: The intersection of Bay St. (in foreground) and Maryland St. in Dorchester, Massachusetts where fourth grade students and their teacher were reportedly accosted by the teen trio of Mark Wahlberg, Derek Furkart and Michael Guilfoyle. The teens reportedly yelled racial epithets and threw rocks as the school children walked back to their school from an outing with their teacher in 1986
Video playing bottom right...
Click here to expand to full page
ADVERTISING
Belmonte agrees that Wahlberg, 43, should receive the pardon from outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick — although she would like a face-to-face apology from the man who turned from a racist street tough into one of Hollywood's hottest actors of his generation.
'"I'm sorry" goes a long way,' Belmonte told MailOnline in the kitchen of her home in Westwood, a leafy commuter town 15 miles southwest of Boston. 'But I am one who believes in forgiveness.'
It was the last Monday of the school year in 1986 at Mather Elementary in Dorchester, Massachusetts — the country's oldest public school — when Mrs. Deshaies decided to take her kids out for a treat, an hour or so playing on the sand at Savin Hill Beach.
'It was a lovely, warm June day,' she remembered. Her class of 32 children was predominantly African-American despite the local area being a working-class white stronghold. 'It was the days of busing. There were just three white kids.'
As the grade schoolers walked to the beach, one boy, Jesse Coleman, became agitated. He saw Wahlberg and two other teens on the street. Just the day before the same trio had attacked Jesse, his brother and his sister.
The older boys had chased the siblings on their mopeds, chanting: 'Kill the n*****! Kill the n*****!' according to court papers. One of the boys yelled: 'We don't like black n*****s in the area so f*** off out of the area.'
+9
Wahlberg has appealed to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick for a pardon. Wahlberg breached the judgment related to the elementary class incident when he got in trouble again two years later, attacking two Vietnamese men in another race-motivated attack, hitting one with a stick and punching the other in the eye
+9
Back in the day: Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg), rapper and actor, circa 1991, five years after the attack
+9
Clippings: Over the years retired school teacher Mary Belmonte has saved news clippings of now-Hollywood celebrity Mark Wahlberg's early brushes with the law and of his recent successes
'Jesse said those are not very nice people,' said Belmonte — who reverted to her maiden name after a divorce.
'He told me the names they had called him. I said don't pay any attention to them.'
It was on the way back, as they walked up Bay Street, passing a nursing home, that things got ugly as they once again ran into Wahlberg, then 15, and his two cohorts Michael Guilfoyle, 15, and Derek Furkart, 13. according to court papers.
'Several kids said: "They're calling us names." I tried to hurry them up,' said Belmonte.
But Wahlberg's group joined up with a gang of other boys hanging out on the street and the older boys picked up rocks and started throwing them at the terrified pre-teens. 'There were seven or eight other boys, all around the 13-15 age group,' she added.
'These were rocks they were throwing, not pebbles, but rocks.'
Students Kristyn Atwood and Emily Harr were both hit in the head by the missiles. Atwood, now 38 and living in Georgia, told the Boston Globe she does not think it is fair that Wahlberg should get his conviction overturned and 'make it seem like it never happened.'
Eventually an ambulance driver who was just leaving the nursing home came to the teacher's aid, court records show.
'He managed to block them with his ambulance so we could get on back to school,' said Belmonte, now a 68-year-old grandmother. 'It was very frightening.'
When the class returned to school, Belmonte reported the incident. One of the children recognized Wahlberg as both went to the Colonel Daniel Marr Boys Club.
Police opened an investigation, but it wasn't until August 1986, two months after the June 16 attack, that arrests were made. The cases against Wahlberg and Furkart were settled by consent judgments, under which they agreed never to harass the teacher, Atwood, Coleman or Harr or their families.
In court, Guilfoyle claimed the injunction should not apply to him as he was a juvenile. However his case was thrown out. He appealed and lost again.
+9
Brave: Mary said she was also pleased to hear that Michael Guilfoyle (left) had put his past behind him and is now a lieutenant with the Boston Fire Department. When approached by MailOnline, Guilfoyle declined comment
But Wahlberg breached the judgment when he got in trouble again two years later, attacking two Vietnamese men in another race-motivated attack, hitting one with a stick and punching the other in the eye.
For that offence Wahlberg, the youngest of nine children, was sentenced to three months in jail, but served 45 days. It is for the conviction for those 1988 assaults that the actor is requesting a pardon from Governor Deval Patrick.
As MailOnline reported exclusively last week, one of the men, Johnny Trinh - who was known at the time as Hoa Trinh - said he forgives the megastar, and Wahlberg has now invited him to fly to Los Angeles from his new home in Texas for a face-to-face meeting.
Belmonte said she too would like to meet Wahlberg to hear an apology. 'The kids were really frightened,' she said.
'I grew up on the streets of Boston, an Italian living in a largely Irish area, and I was called all sorts of names. You say it, I've heard it.
'I wasn't afraid to go anywhere, but once they started to throw rocks at little children, I got scared. I was thinking how nothing had changed since I was a child, people would still call you names just because of the way you look.'
The attack took its toll. 'I could never take another group to the beach,' said Belmonte. 'I felt I could never put other children at risk.'
Belmonte first discovered that one of her attackers had become famous when a Village Voice reporter contacted her in 1993 for a story he was writing on the young rapper and Calvin Klein underwear model 'Marky Mark'.
+9
Mather Elementary School in Dorchester, the country's oldest public school
+9
Retired teacher Mary, with her partner Nick Fiorentino at their home in Westwood, Massachusetts, recounts the day the teen trio attacked her class
'I had heard of Marky Mark and of course I knew the name Mark Wahlberg from the case. But I didn't realize they were one and the same person,' she said.
'Everyone should be forgiven at some point,' she added. 'Mark Wahlberg has really made something of himself and he should be commended — lots of kids in his situation would have ended up in jail.'
She said she was also pleased to hear that Guilfoyle had put his past behind him and is now a lieutenant with the Boston Fire Department. When approached by MailOnline, Guilfoyle declined comment, stressing that the attack on the school group had occurred when he was a juvenile.
Belmonte said she is happy that Wahlberg — who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Martin Scorsese's 2006 movie 'The Departed' — has reached out to Trinh. 'I'm really glad about that. It really shows a lot,' she said.
Her partner of 17 years, retired construction supervisor Nick Fiorentino, 70, added: 'I'm ready to forgive him. But it is all very well for him to stand up on television and say he is sorry. He really should go to the people he terrorized — like Mary — and say sorry to them personally.
'A personal apology means a lot,' added Fiorentino.
why do you have to preface that you mean no harm?
