The location where Mark Wahlberg assaulted Hoa Trinh

Assault Location Boston, Massachusetts

This is the location where Mark Wahlberg assaulted a Vietnamese man named Hoa Trinh.

It is situated on the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Pearl Street in Boston, Massachusetts.

Wahlberg was a troubled teenager. Before his rise to fame, the Hollywood actor was a poor high school dropout who was heavily involved in drugs and street crime.

During this period of his life, he carried out a number of racist assaults, one of which involved him chasing a group of Black children while shouting racial slurs and throwing stones at them.

Wahlberg's most serious and widely talked-about incident occurred on Dorchester Avenue, when he violently attacked two Vietnamese men in the space of five minutes.

At around 9 p.m. on April 8th, 1988, the 16-year-old was standing outside of 998 Dorchester Avenue when he attempted to steal beer from a man named Thanh Lam.

Wahlberg, who was holding a five-foot stick, reportedly shouted, "Vietnam f*cking sh*t," before hitting Lam over the head and knocking him unconscious. The force of the attack was so great that the stick broke into two pieces.

Thanh Lam Wahlberg
The first assault occurred outside 998 Dorchester Avenue at around 9 p.m., when Wahlberg struck Thanh Lam over the head with a large stick.
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When a police car arrived at the scene, Wahlberg and his friends fled south on Dorchester Avenue.

Assault
Wahlberg and his friends ran south on Dorchester Avenue.

After reaching the corner near Pearl Street, they spotted another Vietnamese man named Hoa Trinh, who was completely unaware of what had just happened.

In an attempt to fool the approaching officers, Wahlberg put his arm around Trinh's shoulder and shouted, "The police are coming. The police are coming. Let me hide."

This tactic worked, as the patrol car initially continued driving past the pair. However, instead of thanking Trinh for pretending to be his friend, Wahlberg immediately turned around and punched him in the eye.

Soon after, the police detained the 16-year-old, and Trinh identified him as his attacker.

At that point, the police brought him back to the scene of the first assault, where he made a series of racist remarks about Vietnamese people and proudly admitted that he was the person who struck Lam over the head.

Wahlberg eventually pleaded guilty to felony assault and was sentenced to two years in prison. However, he was released after just 45 days in jail.

He later claimed that he was high on PCP (phencyclidine) when he committed the crimes.

Although multiple sources have stated that Trinh lost his sight in the attack, this is untrue, as his eye was removed in 1975 due to an injury that he received while fighting in the Vietnam War.

Hoa Trinh
The second assault occurred on the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Pearl Street.

In 2014, Wahlberg applied for a pardon for his crimes in Massachusetts. However, this ignited so much controversy that he eventually abandoned his application.

He later said that he regretted applying for one.

Following the controversy, Wahlberg met with Trinh and apologized for the attack.

Address

The address and GPS coordinates for the corner are as follows:

Address

Dorchester Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, MA 02125, USA

GPS Coordinates

42.314718, -71.056923
42°18'52.98"N 71°03'24.92"W

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Area Information

The assault took place in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.

📍 The corner is roughly 215 yards (195 meters) north of the intersection between Dorchester Avenue and Savin Hill Avenue.

This location belongs to the following categories:

Crime ScenesCelebrities

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