Five years ago, David Bernstein at the Phoenix wrote a long article about the Boston Police Department's really low success rate in getting murderers put away, The Worst Homicide Squad In The Country."

The article seems to come up whenever somebody wants to slam the BPD, most recently in the comments on this Universal Hub post about a Dorchester girl who wound up shot in the leg in her own house thanks to some thugs who decided to have a firefight on the street outside.

Jake Wark, spokesman for District Attorney Dan Conley, responded by tearing into the article.

And now Bernstein has responded by tearing into Wark and Conley, specifically over one particular case, that of a man whom Bernstein, in a separate article, said may very well be innocent of the murder charge he was convicted on:

... I have never before, publicly or privately, ever, in the slightest way, suggested that the DA's office may have declined to follow up on my Chatman story because of their personal feelings about me. I have never even entertained that notion, let alone alleged it. But the recent extraordinary invective toward me from Wark, and his dismissive mention of the Chatman case, made me wonder about it for the first time.

So please, Jake, prove me wrong. Show me that your dismissal of my 6000 words' worth of reporting was based not on your dislike of me, but on some actual information and knowledge within your office that my reporting was in error. Show me. You're the one who brought it up, so I'm asking you to back it up. Please. I am eagerly waiting.