A candlelight vigil Monday outside the Davis Square T station mourned Steven McCluskey, who died because people ignored him.
The aftermath of his March 9 death inside the T station, trapped on an escalator for 23 minutes as people walked past, was nearly a repeat of that lack of attention, said Kellian Pletcher, the event’s organizer.
Pletcher, an educational game designer from Davis Square, was in disbelief when a friend told her the story two weeks ago. What surprised her more was that no one had hosted a ceremony for McCluskey.
“I immediately started emailing everybody, being like, ‘Okay, where are the grown-ups in the room that are running this vigil?’ Because, of course, there’s got to be a vigil. But there wasn’t, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m the grown-up in this room,” Pletcher said.
The event drew more than 50 people including family and friends of McCluskey, 40, a carpenter from South Boston. Attendees lit candles and laid flowers in front of the Holland Street entrance to the station, and Shannon Flaherty, McCluskey’s sister, read two poems by family members grieving his death and saying goodbye.
“It can be easy to home in on anger and sadness and pain,” she said. “But that’s not what he would have wanted me to do.”
Jess Smith, an interfaith chaplain at St. James’s Episcopal Church, offered a prayer for McCluskey, while other speakers performed songs. First Church Somerville pastoral resident Stef Grossano led the audience in a song that felt directed at McCluskey’s family: “You do not carry this all alone.”
Pletcher understands that the video of the incident, which has gone viral over the past three weeks, is hard for people to stomach. The MBTA security footage from Feb. 27 shows McCluskey fall and get stuck in the escalator, while more than a dozen T riders pass by as his clothes tighten fatally around his body.
But she said it’s imperative that people acknowledge what happened to him. “We can’t distance ourselves from everything. Those who can face these things have to,” she said.
“When these things happen, we don’t want to look at them,” Pletcher said. “The instinct is just to turn inward … but we’re stronger together, and here we are together.”
People from around Davis Square pitched in to organize the event. Danielle Buote, a neighbor with no connection to Pletcher, reached out to help when she saw Pletcher’s Facebook post advertising the vigil. Nellie’s Wildflowers, on Holland Street, donated free flowers for the ceremony.
Pletcher said she was glad to see any amount of people show up to the vigil, and was pleased with its size. Many of those attending did not know McCluskey.
Mary Flaherty said she was surprised when Pletcher, a stranger, told her she was hosting a vigil. “Just seeing the way everybody came together proved to me there really is people that care. People do love each other and they do care what happens,” she said.
Flaherty learned how her son died only when reporters showed her the video. The MBTA did not disclose what happened to McCluskey after the incident, she said, but the video became public in early May following an NBC10 Boston investigation. She said it was tough being at the T station for the first time since the incident, but she was glad to see support from the community.
“I just can’t thank everybody enough for showing him that kind of respect. I just wish the MBTA had a little bit more,” she said.
About The Author
