Two children were robbed while running a lemonade stand on Wednesday afternoon in a Boston neighborhood, and the incident has shaken community members.
Police responded to the scene in South Boston where the young brother and sister were with their father and told officers what happened, Fox News reported Thursday.
Two suspects had allegedly passed the children’s stand multiple times, then walked up to them and asked if they took Apple Pay.
“Before the young entrepreneurs could answer, one suspect grabbed a box containing $50 in cash. One of the suspects displayed a black firearm in his waistband before the pair ran off, police said,” the report continued.
The children’s mother, Jennifer Byrne, told NBC Boston, “My daughter called me, I’m at work. She was in hysterics, crying, saying, ‘Somebody put a gun to us and took all of our money.’ They noticed two kids with masks over their face across the street they kept coming back and forth.”
She added, “My son is 12. He said one was smaller, he’d guess 10 or 11, and the other child looked a little older, maybe 14.”
Law enforcement released surveillance images and video footage Thursday of the two suspects and asked for the public’s help in identifying them:
“The children described the suspects to police. One appeared to be a dark-skinned male about 14 years old wearing a black Nike sheisty — a slang term for a full-face covering — a black shirt, unknown color shorts, and high white socks; this suspect displayed a black firearm in his waistband,” the Fox report said. “The second suspect was described as a light-skinned male appearing to be 11 years old. He was also wearing a Nike sheisty.”
The siblings have since said they will be reopening their lemonade stand.
In regard to the incident, Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn told NBC, “When someone robs a lemonade stand, you can’t continue saying we’re the safest city in America.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) was criticized in March of 2025 for offering condolences to the family of a man killed while he was trying to stab two people at a restaurant.
She also attacked President Donald Trump in a speech, reasserted her dedication to illegal immigrants, and repeatedly claimed Boston is the “safest major city in the nation,” according to Breitbart News.
The outlet noted that “Wu has also helped reshape Boston’s economy and pushed it on an unsustainable path by importing migrants even as the city’s middle class has fled.”
She was also reportedly funded by a Chinese Communist Party intelligence official during her 2021 campaign.
