Brookline Police - On the Couch.
By Jim Conley • March 28th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Sitting through last night’s meting of Brookline’s Citizen Complaint Panel was like watching an episode of HBO’s remarkable series “In Treatment.” In the series, patients visiting the therapist are both resistant to, and woefully in need of, treatment (as is the therapist).
Such was the drama when Brookline Police Chief Daniel O’Leary took a seat across from panel members to discuss the current citizen complaint practices at Brookline PD. O’Leary comes to the panel with an open mind, but he can’t see how the current policy can be improved. He thinks there’s always room for improvement, but the current policy is the “gold standard”. Police officers can make mistakes, but Brookline’s officers are the best trained anywhere.
And so it goes.
Folks, this therapy is not going to work. The Chief is in denial. And there are too many enablers on the panel to make their findings credible and their work meaningful.
There is only one question that matters (and this panel is not going to address it) — whether the Brookline Police and the Brookline Selectmen should be the final arbiters of a citizen’s complaint.
It seems to me that a “gold standard” police force wouldn’t care who heard these complaints. And the executive arm of (Massachusetts’ best run) government would see it as proof of their superlative claim rather than a threat to their station (i.e., their ability to influence matters at the Department).
Alas, the panel has no treatment plan for this reluctant patient. Some members want to talk about what got him to the chair — the events of May 24th. But that incident was handled perfectly, says the Chief. One member suggests that running onto the scene yelling (as did Officer Richard Ford that evening) may be not be the best approach — it may have escalated the situation.
“Not so,” says Attorney Douglas Louison (the Chief’s ringer on the panel). “Voice control is the standard method across the country.”
It may be, but only in those situations where the officer needs to get control over a crowd lurching toward chaos. By most accounts, the only person out of control in the lobby of Brookline Town Hall was Officer Ford.
Folks, it’s clear that this therapy is not going to work. It’s time for an intervention.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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I assume that Louison, as a careful attorney, can identfy literature supporting his statement that “voice control is the standard method across the country” that he can make available to the panel. I’m sure he is aware of “good cop/bad cop” procedures, at least from watching TV (beyond Fox’s “Cops”). Assuming (but not declaring) that officer Ford’s yelling may have seemed “bad cop,” where was the “good cop” among the several other officers present to calm things down; fortunately Arthur Conquest did not permit himself to be baited.
By the way, do existing BPD procedures include voice control, as well as other means of control? If so, I assume that they will be provided to the panel.
After putting up my earlier comment, with the benefit of “Google” I explored the Internet for evidence that “voice control is the standard method across the county” utilizing variations of
“Voice control as standard police procedures”
without success in locating a “standard method.” In my experience as both a parent and an attorney, I have used my voice to control certain situations. But this did not involve screaming and sticking my nose into someone’s face. Perhaps we need a definition of “voice control” by a police officer to put it in the context of what happened the evening of May 24, on the ground floor of Town Hall. Who hasn’t heard a bully use his voice to control someone by putting him/her in fear of bodily harm. So we need the term “voice control” that would be appropriate for a police officer defined in order to have a determination made as to whether officer Ford used appropriate “voice control.” Attorney Louison was not there. Chief O’Leary wasn’t there. Lt. Burke wasn’t there. (I wasn’t there either.) But there were plenty of witnesses.
Isn’t the burden upon attorney Louison to prove that “voice control is the standard method across the country” as he claims in apparent support of Chief O’Leary before all the evidence is in before the panel on which he serves?