On Brookline

Last night’s meeting of the panel reviewing Brookline’s police complaint policy convinced me of one thing–a civilian review board is long overdue.

Many of the panel’s members rightly focused on the need to examine the events of May 24th and subsequent, events that led to the assembly of the panel. To them, their charge quickly moved beyond the four corners of the written policy to the manner in which the policy is administered.

And that is bad news for Brookline Police Chief Daniel O’Leary (whom the panel plans to call as their first “witness”), the selectmen and Town Administrator Richard Kelliher.

The panel was an attempt by the 6th floor of town hall to co-opt the Conquest matter and to give the patina of an investigation to the public. So, it was more than amusing to watch Kelliher advise the panel that their charge does not include any variations on the root word investigate.

A further setback comes from failure to suck the civil rights division of the Massachusetts AGs office into the effort at spin control [see previous post]. An assistant AG from that office was announced as willing to serve on the panel (pending permission from the Office) but won’t after all (though one from the charities division will serve as a private citizen).

The big news is the calling out of the police department’s ringer–Attorney Douglas Louison. It seems that Louison is on retainer for at least one officer at Brookline PD and has represented others in the past. I don’t know how Louison got on the panel, but it’s clear that his agenda is to narrowly define the work of the panel that it will be rendered meaningless.

With the disclosure of a conflict, Louison should be booted from the panel. But that’s not to say that he has provided no service to the community. Indeed, the back and forth between he and member Ruth Ellen Fitch (with whom I am terribly smitten) proved that a panel of citizens can hear matters involving the police without regard to the politics involved.  Or to default on the side of the Force.

There are still serious issues involving the membership. I don’t understand why an attorney who served on the search committee to hire O’Leary would be asked to review the department’s approach to citizen’s complaints. And I don’t see what value a communications manager at IBM brings to the panel.

Be that as it may, there was a brief glimmer of hope in bringing resident citizen control over law enforcement practices. We’ll have to wait to see how the 6th floor plans to squash it.

But for now, things are spiraling out of control for Kelliher, et. al. And that is a mighty good thing, indeed.

Update:  In using the word retainer to describe Mr. Louison’s work with BPD officers, I don’t mean to suggest that he has a recurring financial arrangement with them.  It’s shorthand for the fact that he’s been hired and paid by officers.