Supporters of a Massachusetts woman accused of murdering her boyfriend descended on a courthouse in the state Tuesday claiming she was framed by police.
The judge even took the unusual step of blocking demonstrators proclaiming Karen Read’s innocence from being within 200 feet of the courthouse Tuesday as jury selection began.
“Karen Read could be any one of us,” demonstrator Dina Warchal told WJAR. “Thank God she has the money and means to fight this. But if it was us everyday people, we’d be in jail right now and you wouldn’t even know about this. That’s scary.”
Read, 44 is on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend and Boston police officer, John O’Keefe in January 2022.
Prosecutors accuse her of intentionally backing her SUV into him in a rage and leaving him to die in the snow outside a friend’s house following a drunken fight.
Read and her supporters claim O’Keefe was actually killed inside retired Boston Police detective Brian Albert’s home at a house party, and the department has attempted to cover it up.
The trial is going ahead despite an ongoing FBI investigation into the death and how local authorities handled their investigation into it.
Demonstrators at court wore bright pink shirts and held signs which read: “Free Karen Read” and “She was the only one trying to save John’s life.”
The judge had ordered those inside the courthouse — including police officers –are not allowed to “exhibit any buttons, photographs, clothing, or insignia, relating to the case pending against the defendant or relating to any trial participant.”
In addition, police officers are not allowed to wear their “department-issued uniforms or any police emblems in the courthouse.”
Read’s supporters claim this is overreach by public officials.
“I think [Judge Beverly Cannone’s] ruling is unjust. She’s trampled on our First Amendment rights. That’s why I’m here with the American flag. Is she going to have me arrested with the American flag?” Warchal told the local outlet.
Protester-made signs also popped up on light poles, reading: “Restricted Area: No free speech beyond this point” marking the parameters of the 200 foot buffer zone.
Read has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. She and O’Keefe had been drinking at Waterfall Bar with his friend Jennifer McCabe, who then invited them to Albert’s house.
Read dropped her boyfriend off at the house around 12:30 a.m. and then drove to his house in Canton and fell asleep.
When she woke up around 4:30 a.m., O’Keefe hadn’t come home. Read phoned him, one of his old friends and McCabe, who claimed she had never seen him at the party.
Eventually, the three women drove to Albert’s, where Read found her boyfriend’s body on the lawn and ran to give him CPR.
First responders claim they heard Read say: “I hit him, I hit him,” which she has disputed, saying she had actually said “did I hit him?”
Read told ABC last August: “I did not kill John O’Keefe. I have never harmed a hair on John O’Keefe’s head.”
Her supporters believe he was “beaten to a pulp” inside Albert’s home and “cops knitted this together like a tight cap,” a local, who asked not to be identified, previously told The Post.
Albert has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
