Great Moments in Policing.
By Jim Conley • Dec 11th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Selectman Gil Hoy: “Chief, all of the witness statements I have read say that the officer was quite rude.”
Brookline Police Chief Daniel O’Leary: “You have to look at the facts.”
Owwww, the stupid…it burns.
As predicted, the three intellectual lightweights on the Brookline Board of Selectmen quashed a hearing on appeal to Arthur Conquest’s complaint on police mistreatment out of May 24th’s Brawl at Town Hall.
Gil Hoy was as good as I’ve ever seen him in pressing for a little accountability.
But alas, the trio of Daly, Allen and Mermell freed inanity from the clutches of reason. Time for an independent police review board before someone gets hurt.
No one looking in on tonight’s hearing can take any comfort in the quality of policing in Brookline - the chief gives bumbling a good name and the cameo by Lt. Stephen Burke at hearing’s end should have led to a charge of aggravated arrogance. (I never knew that you charge people right away even if an investigation is not complete.)
But the night will be best remembered as the occasion when Jesse Mermell, the new lightweight champeen of Brookline politics, thanked “everyone involved for helping to bring about this important moment to talk deep about the issue of race.”
Thanks Arthur Conquest, for almost getting arrested and charged after being corralled by seven police officers. Thanks for the expense and aggravation of bringing a professional conduct complaint and then sitting through a hearing where the police skewer you.
Jesse says, “you’re awesome!”
Update: Bear in mind, that Conquest was not allowed to address the board last evening. They only heard from the police., who put on a one-dimensional case that succeeded in quashing the appeal. Anyone who’s been on a jury knows that the prosecution’s case is often airtight until the witnesses are cross-examined. But this is Brookline.
Update (2): According to Brookline Police Chief Daniel O’Leary the officers’ actions were justified because, “they didn’t know what they were walking into.” Well golly, don’t they have two way radios? One dispatcher knew it was an altercation between Arthur Conquest and a ZBA member and the other dispatcher hung up on Polly Selkoe without asking any questions.
Wouldn’t dispatchers in O’Leary’s highly trained police force try to get and relay information from the callers? I’ve listened to a lot of police dispatches and nearly all of them include some level of advisement on the situation.
It didn’t happen in this case. And instead of a board of selectmen who might see this as a serious breach of officer safety, we’re stuck with three lightweights that see it as explaining everything.
Glad O’Leary doesn’t have my back (not that he’d take it).
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Just imagine Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” as this decision was rendered. Even though it appears to have been a close 3-2 vote, it was a foreseeable Board of Selectmen “Whitewash.” Jesse can kiss goodbye to moving on to higher elective office. Even PAX, if it lives up to its mission statement, may distance itself from Mermell to save what little credibility it has left.
But we shall overcome - by jump starting a change from Representative Town Meeting to a city form of governance. This is Brookline’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” moment. Let’s start with next May’s elections and let the sun set on the Daly Show. Then …..
Re: Update (2)
” … they didn’t know what they were walking into.”
Isn’t that the case with respect to just about any response? Both Polly Selkoe and Town Counsel asked or said to send over “a police officer.” They each clearly used the singular. (I wonder if Polly and/or Town Counsel had expected so many officers to come to the scene in response to their calls. Town Counsel made sure she bailed out quickly, avoiding the lobby to get to her car to get to wherever she was in a hurry to get to after a long day and night at the office.)
So perhaps for EVERY call for assistance comparable force should be sent out. Or did the response force sent have to do with the fact that the locus was Town Hall, just about across the street? Or wasn’t there much going on at HQ at the time?
The police response team was so close to Town Hall that FOX’s “COPS” apparently could not get a camera crew to the scene on time. Or perhaps the local FOX outlet thought there just might be operational security cameras in the lobby. (Maybe there was such a system? Where’s Brookline’s Butterfield of Watergate fame when you need him?)
Re: First Update:
If Conquest had been given the opportunity to address the Board, what might he have said? If he submitted a written rebuttal to Lt. Burke’s internal affairs report to the Selectmen to support his appeal, it should now be released. I look forward to reading it. The Selectmen placed a lid upon a lid. But the steam of justice has a way of escaping. I trust that the BPD will maintain all of the raw data collected by Lt. Burke for his report.
Things have not changed since July 14, 2003.