No Wonder They Resisted.
By Jim Conley • Oct 22nd, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Now we know why it took five months to wrestle the police incident reports concerning the May 24th Brawl at Town Hall from Brookline Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo’s office - they show, as publicly alleged, that Zoning Board of Appeals Member Lawrence Kaplan made obviously false statements to police who responded at the scene.
View the police incident report here.
In the main incident report, Sgt. Gerald McGrath writes:
“I asked Mr. Kaplan if he could tell me what had happened. Mr. Kaplan stated that he was running the zoning board meeting and that they were discussing a property on Somerset Road. The board came to a split decision. This split decision upset one woman and she stood up and stated that was a lousy decision. Mr. Kaplan stated that this woman made this statement while the meeting was going on and made it loud enough for all in the room to hear. The woman repeated herself two more times. This disrupted the meeting and Mr. Kaplan stated to the woman that was enough [emphasis added].”
Not for nothing, but the decision was unanimous, otherwise it would have had no legal effect.
But the more troubling aspects of Mr. Kaplan’s statement to police is that the meeting had adjourned and members were packing their things to leave when the woman, Ruthann Sneider, made the statement attributed to her in the police report. An audiotape of the meeting clearly shows that the public meeting was no longer underway when Sneider made her remarks. Kaplan couldn’t have missed the adjournment and the unanimous decision because, according to the decision, he voted on the matter.
So then police rely upon Kaplan’s version of events to set forth the basis for an assault charge on Town Meeting Member Arthur Conquest. Kaplan’s statement is poles apart from what witnesses say happened that evening. And given that Kaplan had made seemingly false statements prior, a reasonable person would have to go with the witness’ accounts.
Folks, this is the complaining witness statement that Brookline Police relied upon to pursue an assault charge against Arthur Conquest - and it was vouched for by town employee Frank Hitchcock.
And it is patently false.
Had police been successful, Conquest would have been thrust into the criminal justice system, gained an entry in the criminal record database and likely spent a fortune in legal fees to clear his name.
This is why we have a law that protects people against making false statements to police, and no one that I know of has been charged with that crime coming out of this affair. Why not? Can anyone with a beef - especially a town official - use the police to exact a revenge? Is there no consequence for making eminently provable false statements during an investigation?
Apparently in Brookline the answer is yes.
An aside: We’ll get to Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo’s role in all of this later, but you’ll see in the report that she must have missed the lecture on civil rights and due process. A bigger hack has never roamed the corridors of town hall.
Update: And remember in his tirade resignation letter Kaplan says that he elected not to “press an assault charge” against Conquest. But according to witnesses, Kaplan moved from behind a railing wrapping the hearing room’s dais to the well of the room. Who dragged Kaplan out there? Why did he leave the protection of a railed off area if he felt threatened? Did police interview other witnesses to get these answers?
Kaplan says he chaired the meeting - apparently he didn’t. He says the meeting was in progress - it wasn’t. He said a split decision sparked the disruption - it was a unanimous decision. So why would police believe anything he says? And why wouldn’t they check these facts prior to seeking a charge against Conquest?
Why indeed.
Update (2): Here’s the statute designating it a crime to make a false report to police.
Update (3): Apparently, these reports were not included in the report Selectmen received from Police Chief Daniel O’Leary on the results of his internal investigation into racial bias, as alleged by Conquest. Gee, why not?
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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The ZBA decision in the One Somerset Road case was filed July 2, 2007. It sets forth the original hearing on May 3, 2007, the continued hearing on May 24, 2007 and the reopened hearing on June 23, 2007. It is quite clear from the decision that throughout these hearings, ZBA Chair Gordon chaired, or ran, them. The ZBA members all signed the decision, Gordon as “Chair” and each of Kaplan and Geller as “Member.”
So why, according to the police incident report, did Kaplan tell the police on May 24th that he was running the meeting? Did he have an Al Haig moment or enhancing his version of what happened?
Why didn’t the police obtain witness statements from Gordon, Geller, Polly Selkoe, Michael Shepard and the woman whom Kaplan claimed disrupted the meeting on May 24th? Indeed, it seems there may have been other witnesses. Yet the only witnesses questioned were Dopazo, Hitchcock and Kaplan, all three connected to Town government. How inconvenient.
By the way, the ZBA decision makes no reference whatsoever to the alleged incident or any split decision by the ZBA panel on May 24th. Keep in mind that the decision was filed some five (5) weeks after the alleged incident.
Was Conquest placed under arrest? He asked if he was being held and was told by the police that he was being detained. The Incident Report describes Conquest’s involvement as “DEFENDANT/ARRESTEE ASSAULT-SIMPLE.” So, was Conquest arrested, held or detained? Under the circumstances, would any of these be proper since the police did not witness the alleged incident and there was no bloody shirt?
I assume the police made notes of the witness interviews that were later transcribed. Are those notes available to compare with the typewritten report? It seems rather strange that Conquest would have told the police that the man running the meeting was Larry Kaplan. Ms. Gordon has long served as Chair of the ZBA and when she sits on a ZBA panel, she runs the meeting, not an alternate Member I’m confident that Conquest was well aware of her role as Chair.
And what’s with Conquest being advised “that he was no longer allowed to attend zoning board meetings, and that Town Counsel will be forwarding a No Trespass notice to him.” Since when is Town Counsel judge, jury and executioner, and under what authority? Has she ever understood due process?
I hope that the internal investigation of Conquest’s complaint about his treatment by the police on May 24th was more thorough than the investigation contained in the Incident Report. But we may never know.