Michelle Wu, a fierce advocate for police transparency earlier than changing into Boston mayor, now has a dismal report of holding her personal police accountable – from blocking physique cam footage from going public to declaring her commissioner a civilian to keep away from scrutiny.
With one notable exception, Wu has mentioned little about police accountability after being elected mayor 4 years in the past and as a substitute gained the endorsement of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union.
The exception was when Wu mentioned the town’s Workplace of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) was accumulating experiences on alleged abuses by ICE officers.
However in the case of holding her personal police division accountable, Wu has been lax.
Her administration has usually resisted the media’s public data requests for physique cam footage and has insulated Commissioner Michael Cox from potential scrutiny by hiding behind technicalities that he’s not a police officer.
Wu’s administration, which is being sued by an ex-city worker concerned in a Metropolis Corridor love triangle, has refused to launch physique cam footage from the night time of the worker’s assault arrest. The arrest prompted Wu to fireside her.
Marwa Khudaynazar claims recordings she has seen from police will present she by no means punched a feminine responding officer, and has requested a Boston federal courtroom choose to rethink its approval of a movement to seal the physique cam footage.
Police physique cam recordings are ruled by public data regulation and Secretary of State William Galvin has fought a invoice to make them exempt from the regulation. He famous that solely footage that would determine witnesses or victims is usually allowed to be withheld by police.
“Permitting police departments to withhold any footage captured on these cameras would intervene with the general public’s capacity to supervise their very own authorities,” Galvin, who’s in command of imposing the general public data regulation, wrote to lawmakers. “This is a matter of specific significance to minority communities, and withholding movies of police interactions would solely breed distrust. That is an space the place we want extra transparency, not much less.”
Wu’s administration additionally grew to become embroiled not too long ago within the Karen Learn case after Learn’s legal professional, Alan Jackson, wrote a scathing letter to Wu and the state Police Officer Requirements and Coaching (POST) Fee asking for a disciplinary evaluate of Cox for “dishonesty, lack of candor and conduct unbecoming of an officer.”
Jackson steered Cox lied when he mentioned he didn’t learn about former officer Kelly Dever’s involvement within the Learn case and pressured her to alter her testimony – a cost Cox has strongly denied.
Dever is a former Boston police officer and Canton police officer who labored the night time earlier than John O’Keefe was discovered lifeless within the snow.
However the POST Fee government director Enrique Zuniga rejected Jackson’s letter, saying Cox was not topic to evaluate as a result of he’s a civilian. Cox is a former longtime Boston police officer picked by Wu to guide the division.
“In response to the Metropolis, Commissioner Cox doesn’t personally perform police duties and features,” the letter from Zuniga mentioned. “Primarily based partly on this info, the Fee to date has not required non-sworn civilian executives equivalent to Commissioner Cox to acquire regulation enforcement certification nor has the Fee handled them as being topic to different statutory and regulatory provisions governing sworn regulation enforcement officers.”
WBUR has additionally reported that Cox “routinely” rejects suggestions by the Workplace of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) to punish officers accused of wrongdoing.
The workplace, which features a civilian evaluate board and was created by the Metropolis Council and signed by then-Mayor Marty Walsh after the police homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has reviewed 18 citizen complaints and really helpful self-discipline in some circumstances.
“The ordinance says that we make suggestions to the police commissioner,” mentioned Joshua Dankoff, who serves on OPAT. “I feel it isn’t inside the spirit of the ordinance, or the intention of it, to then have these suggestions not be responded to in any respect.”
