What’s the Hurry?
By Jim Conley • Feb 21st, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
Print This Post
• Email this author
You know, if I put together a panel to look into the way in which police complaints are handled, I’d have insisted that the panel would have met by now.
But not the Brookline Selectmen.
For them, the political purpose has been served and now it’s just a matter of stalling past the May town meeting. Or, a matter of avoiding the embarrassment that will rain down once the public learns that the selectmen’s panel of experts - in age discrimination, housing discrimination and civil litigation - don’t have much insight to offer on the subject of police protocols and citizen complaints.
Take their time*, they will. It’s not like a developer needs a special permit or anything.
*Assumes the panel is not meeting in secret or by e-mail (in violation of Massachusetts’ Open Meeting Law).
Update: The Committee is going to meet on Wednesday 2/27 at 6:00 PM in the Library’s conference room. Should be a laugh riot.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
Email this author | All posts by Jim Conley
Never mind the motives of the Selectmen, what does this say about the integrity of the panel of experts? Are the the panel members permitting themselves to be manipulated politically by the Selectmen? One might expect that at least one member of the panel would raise his/her voice to get going seriously with the charge for which they were appointed. Granted, the panel members are (unpaid) volunteers, but that is the burden of a civic volunteer: Don’t take the assignment unless you are prepared to commit the time required on a timely basis to perform the task at hand. Isn’t that what professionalism is all about?
Self-policing of complaints against police, as in other areas, is not effective in correcting abuses or wrongdoing.
Check out Marci Hamilton’s article at:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20080221.html
where she demonstrates that self-policing of abuses by clergy has not worked in the past and will not work in the future. While there may be only a very few bad apples, they can ruin the barrel while self-policing covers the strench without addressing the concerns of the victimes of such abuse.
Brookline needs an independent review of citizen complaints against the police. Perhaps the potential actions of the few bad apples might be more effectively controlled with such a review process.