The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide (51 page)

Murphy made lieutenant but then had his own difficulties. He was charged in April 2007 with assaulting his girlfriend in a bar in Baltimore. The couple had gone to the James Joyce Pub after watching the Red Sox play the Orioles in Camden Yards. Murphy “arched his right hand and punched the white female in the face,” according to the Baltimore police report. He fled to his nearby hotel, where he was arrested, police said. One month later, the Boston police lieutenant pleaded guilty in a Baltimore court to punching his girlfriend. He was sentenced to eighteen months of probation.

It turned out not to be Murphy’s first arrest for domestic violence. The prior fall he’d been charged with assaulting his girlfriend in their home in Quincy, Massachusetts, but the case was dismissed when the victim did not want to pursue criminal charges.

For his troubles, Murphy barely skipped a beat at the Boston Police Department. He was given a thirty-day suspension, of which he served only five days.

No question the police department has worked in mysterious ways. Richie Walker, for all of his verbal contortions, never faced any scrutiny or second looks by the department about the discrepancies in his testimony. He went back to work, was promoted to detective, and was reassigned from the station in Mattapan to the one in Hyde Park. In March 2006, he was off-duty at a nightclub near Blue Hill Avenue when he heard gunshots outside. Walker ran out and saw a gunman running in his direction. They traded gunfire before Walker captured the man. It turned out the gunman had just shot two people. Walker received a departmental award for bravery.

Meanwhile, Kenny’s partner, Bobby Dwan, who, like Kenny, had consistently cooperated with investigators but was nonetheless swept up in Ted Merritt’s investigation, waged a fifteen-month fight to regain his place on the force. He passed a polygraph examination immediately after his suspension in October 1998, hoping to show police officials he had nothing to hide. Commissioner Evans initially was unimpressed, but by fall 1999, Bobby got Evans to agree to honor the results of a second exam. If Bobby flunked, the result could be used against him in departmental hearings. If he passed, he would be reinstated.

Bobby took the second polygraph on January 14, 2000. The examiner was a retired air force lieutenant colonel who’d administered numerous polygraph exams in the military and afterward. He asked questions chosen by police officials. Bobby passed with flying colors. Two weeks later, he returned to active duty. His beef with the department wasn’t entirely over, however. He still had to fight the Evans administration to reclaim income lost while he was on leave. But by 2008, his career seemed back on track. Widely regarded as a tough, honest cop, he worked for a while in the Anti-Corruption Unit. He was then promoted to lieutenant and assigned to oversee the night shift in Roxbury.

Then there were Craig Jones’s travails. Several years after the jury’s verdict in Mike’s case, he suddenly found himself under investigation for his punching of Tiny Evans at Woodruff Way. The question was whether Craig had used excessive or justifiable force. The department on January 11, 2002—seven years after Mike’s beating—decided against him. He was suspended for nine months. Flummoxed, he appealed, and the next year a labor arbitrator overturned the suspension. The arbitrator criticized the “extraordinary passage of time” in bringing the charges against Craig and then ruled “Jones was neither overzealous nor inappropriate in his exercise of force.” Noting Craig had no prior history of excessive force, she ruled there was no evidence that Craig “gratuitously punched Tiny Evans for no reason at all. Whether it was one punch or two, the evidence establishes Jones was reacting strictly to the suspect’s continued resistance to arrest even after he was handcuffed.” Craig may have won his arbitration, but his career path seemed to have hit a serious snag. He was moved out of the elite gang unit and assigned to a “traffic car” downtown. Craig missed the action of his former post.

APPENDIX A

COURT CASES

Michael P. Carney v. City of Springfield et al.
, 403 Mass. 604 (1988).

Castro v. Beecher
, 334 F. Supp. 930 (1971).

Castro v. Beecher
, 459 F.2d 725 (1st Cir. 1972).

Castro v. Beecher
, 365 F. Supp. 655 (D. Mass. 1973).

Commonwealth v. Thomas Adams et al.
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, civil docket 89–0046 (“Brighton 13 case”).

John L. Smith v. Thomas Adams et al.
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, civil docket 91–3150.

Commonwealth v. Adams et al.
, 416 Mass. 558 (1993).

Commonwealth v. Robert Brown III
, Dorchester District Court, criminal docket 93–1823.

Commonwealth v. Jimmy Evans
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, criminal docket 95–10237 (“Jackson murder trial”).

Commonwealth v. Robert Brown
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, criminal docket 95–10238 (“Jackson murder trial”).

Commonwealth v. Ronald Tinsley
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, criminal docket 95–10239 (“Jackson murder trial”).

Commonwealth v. John Evans
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, criminal docket 95–10190 (“Jackson murder trial”).

Cox et al. v. City of Boston et al.,
U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, civil docket 95–12729 (“Cox trial”).

Commonwealth v. Robert Brown III
, Suffolk Superior Court, Massachusetts, criminal docket 97–11423.

United States v. Kenneth M. Conley
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, criminal docket 97–10213 (“Conley trial”).

United States v. Conley
, 186 F.3d 7 (1st Cir. 1999).

United States v. Conley
, 103 F. Supp. 2d 45 (D. Mass. 2000).

United States v. Conley
, 249 F. 3d 38 (1st Cir. 2001).

United States v. Conley
, 164 F. Supp. 2d 216 (D. Mass. 2001).

United States v. Conley
, 323 F. 3d 7 (1st Cir. 2003) (en banc).

United States v. Conley
, 332 F. Supp. 2d 302 (D. Mass. 2004).

Conley v. United States
(1st Cir. 2005) (en banc).

Cox et al. v. Conley et al.
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, civil docket 98–10129.

Cox et al. v. Evans
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, civil docket 98–10768.

United States v. Robert Brown III, Sylvester Gendraw, Maurice Payne, Donald Cook
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, criminal docket 99–10383.

Dwan v. City of Boston
, 329 F. 3d 275 (1st Cir. 2003).

Commonwealth v. Evans
, 786 N.E. 2d 375 (Mass. 2003).

Paul DeLeo Jr., Thomas Barrett, Michael Conneely, Matthew Hogardt, Brendan Dever, Patrick Rogers, Christopher Carr, and Brian Dunford v. City of Boston et al.
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, civil docket 03–12538.

United States v. Robert Brown III
, U.S. District Court, District of Maine, criminal docket 04–12.

Evans v. Verdini
, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, civil docket 04–10323.

Evans v. Verdini
, 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, Massachusetts, civil docket 05–2272.

APPENDIX B

BOOKS

Beatty, Jack.
The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874–1958).

Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1992. Bennett, Robert S.
In the Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer.
New York: Crown, 2008.

Gladwell, Malcolm.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

Harr, Jonathan.
A Civil Action.
New York: Random House, 1995.

Johnson, Marilynn S.
Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City.
Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.

Lane, Roger.
Policing the City: Boston 1822–1885.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.

Lukas, J. Anthony.
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families.
New York: Knopf, 1985.

O’Connor, Thomas H.
Boston A to Z.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Skolnick, Jerome H., and Fyfe, James J.
Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force.
New York: Free Press, 1993.

ARTICLES AND SPECIAL REPORTS

Fisher, Stanley Z. (Boston University law professor). “‘Just the Facts, Ma’am’: Lying and the Omission of Exculpatory Evidence in Police Reports.”
New England Law Review
28: 1 (Fall 1993).

Gladwell, Malcolm. “Wrong Turn: How the Fight to Make America’s Highways Safer Went off Course.”
New Yorker
, June 11, 2001.

Shannon, James M. (Massachusetts attorney general); Jonas, Stephen A. (chief, Public Protection Bureau, Massachusetts attorney general’s office); Heins, Marjorie (chief, Civil Rights Division, Massachusetts attorney general’s office). “Report of the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division of Boston Police Department Practices.” Dec. 18, 1990.

Simons, Daniel J., and Chabris, Christopher F. “Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events.”
Perception
28: 1059 (1999).

St. Clair, James D. (chairman). “Report of the Boston Police Department Management Review Committee (“St. Clair Report”).” submitted to Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, Jan. 14, 1992.

APPENDIX C

BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT RULES AND REGULATIONS

Rule 109: Discipline Procedure

Rule 113: Public Integrity Policy

Rule 301: Pursuit Driving

Rule 304: Use of Non-Lethal Force

BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS

Anti-Corruption Division: ACD 95–012 (Cox beating: “Cox ACU”).

Internal Affairs: Complaint Control 2797 (Cox beating: “Cox IAD”).

Internal Affairs: Case 383–92. Physical Abuse: P.O. David C. Williams. Not Sustained.

Internal Affairs: Case 080–93. Physical Abuse: P.O. David C. Williams. Exonerated.

Internal Affairs: Case 179–94. Physical Abuse: P.O. David C. Williams. Exonerated.

Internal Affairs: Case 260–94. Physical Abuse: P.O. David C. Williams. Sustained.

Internal Affairs: Case 079–97. Violation of Rights: P.O. David C. Williams. Unfounded.

Internal Affairs: Case 141–97. Violation of Rule 304: P.O. David C. Williams. Not Sustained.

Internal Affairs: Case 312–99. Multiple Rule Violations. Sgt. Det. Daniel J. Dovidio. Sustained.

BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT LABOR ARBITRATION PROCEEDINGS

G
RIEVANT
: Robert Dwan, suspension.

A
MERICAN
A
RBITRATION
A
SSOCIATION
: In the Matter of Arbitration Between the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation & the City of Boston. Case No.: 3900015599

Philip Dunn, arbitrator. Decision: March 27, 2003 (“Dwan arbitration”).

G
RIEVANT
: James Burgio, discharge.

A
MERICAN
A
RBITRATION
A
SSOCIATION
: In the Matter of Arbitration Between the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association & the City of Boston. Case No.: 16–1370.

Tammy Brynie, arbitrator. Decision: April 17, 2003 (“Burgio arbitration”).

G
RIEVANT
: Craig Jones, suspension.

A
MERICAN
A
RBITRATION
A
SSOCIATION
: In the Matter of Arbitration Between the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association & the City of Boston. Case No.: 16–1534.

Roberta Golick, arbitrator. Decision: Sept. 5, 2003 (“Jones arbitration”).

G
RIEVANT
: David Williams, discharge.

A
MERICAN
A
RBITRATION
A
SSOCIATION
: In the Matter of Arbitration Between the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association & the City of Boston.

Lawrence T. Holden Jr., arbitrator. Decision: June 30, 2005 (“Williams arbitration”).

G
RIEVANT
: Ian Daley, discharge.

A
MERICAN
A
RBITRATION
A
SSOCIATION
: In the Matter of Arbitration Between the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association & the City of Boston. Case No.: 16–1393.

Roberta Golick, arbitrator. Decision: Aug. 9, 2005 (“Daley arbitration”).

SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

Special Grand Jury: John Doe Investigation (Cox beating). SUCR95–11315.

Robert Peabody, assistant district attorney (“Suffolk GJ”).

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

Federal Grand Jury:
United States v. John Doe
(Cox beating).

S. Theodore Merritt, assistant U.S. attorney (“Federal GJ”).

SEARCHABLE TERMS

Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force
(Skolnick, Fyfe), 197

Absence of Malice
(film), 242

Acerra, Kenny, police corruption case involving, 217–18, 288

affirmative action in hiring police officers, 78–79, 81

Amate, Hugo R. (police officer), 60

American Revolution of 1776, 49

Anti-Corruption Unit, Boston Police Department, Cox case investigation and, 199, 203–6, 218, 222–23