On Brookline

What might Arthur Conquest had told the Brookline Board of Selectmen had they let him rebut the Police Chief Dan O’Leary’s nonsensical presentation into events on May 24th? Well, Conquest sent the message below to the private listserve (more secrecy sponsored by taxpayers) of the Town Meeting Members Association.

I’m reprinting it here for those of us who don’t serve with the consent of only 200 voters in our precinct. Says Conquest:

There is a difference between asking the Board of Selectmen if I’d be allowed to present my rebuttal of the entire Investigatory Report at last Tuesday’s hearing on the appeal I submitted, and asking them if I could simply explain at that hearing why I was submitting my appeal.

I went before the Board during their 7:00 AM “Public Comment” period and specifically asked if I could do the latter when my appeal was heard at 8:00 PM that same evening. If Chief O’Leary was going to have the opportunity to publicly discuss Lt Burke’s Investigatory Report before the Board (along with his unfiltered editorial comments,) which the Board had supposedly already read, then why couldn’t I discuss the reasons I was submitting my appeal?

It’s almost identical to the point John Bassett presents in his “Notes of the Selectmen’s Meeting” post: “(Lt. Burke’s) first 8 interviews and 9 pages are with the officers involved, which strikes me as odd. Since the complaint was by Arthur, I’d have expected his interview to have been first.”

In all candor, I think the goal of the first “9 pages” was to marginalize me — e.g. frame me a la the infamous “Willie Horton,” which is exactly how some of people on the 6th floor the evening of 24 May imagined me! And Ruthann Sneider, TMM Precinct 6, was framed as some raving lunatic who was obstructing justice — as in, interfering with detaining (angry and potentially violent Black man) Arthur Wellington Conquest III for assaulting (White and fearful for his life) ZBA member Lawrence Kaplan.

The police take from 7 June 2007, which is when O’Leary tells the Board that he’ll “investigate the 24 May 2007 incident at Town Hall by July,” ’til 11 October 2007 to complete the report, which by the way I don’t believe for a nanosecond. I receive a one page report of Lt. Burke’s findings on the 17th October which I can’t possibly respond to because it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever — I repeat: (Absolutely) “any sense whatsoever” — though I’m informed that I “may appeal for a review by the Board of Selectmen within 21 days of the date of this letter.” (But on the date I actually receive the one pager I only had 14 days!)

As one of the Selectman is discussing Lt. Burke’s report with me over the phone, they realize that I don’t have and was not given a copy of the full report. I’m finally given a copy of the full 35 single spaced report, not including attachments, on Friday, 4:00 PM on 26 October 2007, and told I must respond to it by “1 November 2007″ — which is only four days!

Brookline Police Department’s Award winning Racial Profiling Prevention Strategies, A Ten-Year Overview report states “In the last ten years, the Board of Selectmen has never voted to re-open a complaint.” I wonder why? My homeboys from East Harlem can figure this one out. Hmmm! And The 1987 Report of Selectmen’s Subcommittee on Police and Community Relations is riddled with gaping flaws that are bias towards Brookline’s tiny — “2%” — Black community.

Finally, I’m not looking for any body’s sympathy. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.” Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your town government at work. And you can’t miss the trace-back on this hideous violation of due process - it goes directly to the door of Brookline Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo’s office.