Boston Police

It's the question Boston Police Officer Mike Keaney kept asking himself when he learned his niece, Kaitlyn Keaney, also a Boston officer, had killed herself:

... My brother-in-law, Kaitlyn's dad Jack, is a police officer at C-6 in South Boston. He was working this particular night and heard the 911 call given out over the air. He raced to his home along with several other officers and saw Kaitlyn lying there in her bed. He admitted to me later that night that all he could do was helplessly scream at her, "Why, Kaitlyn, why?" Several family members gathered across the street from the scene in sheer agony. None of us saw this coming, no signs of depression, nothing. The last time I saw her was on July 4 at my brother Joe's annual barbecue. We were shooting baskets with her younger cousins, same old Katie, funny, cheerful, with the brightest smile and most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life ...

Channel 4 reports that whenever Massport takes over property, Boston Police lose their police powers. Might make sense for Logan, but the authority controls growing chunks of South Boston waterfront as well:

This issue is causing tension between Boston police and State police. For example, on the sidewalk in front of the New Seaport Hotel, Boston Police have no police powers. Because the hotel is owned by Massport, it is the exclusive jurisdiction of the State police.

Of course, the issue is hardly a new one for those of us who live on or near parkways, where there's a similar phenomenon (get into an accident on the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury, and you have to wait for State Police to show up).

Shot in chest, in stable condition after the Princeton Street incident, Channel 4 reports.

He's a bit late to the game, but Kevin Cullen today writes what Dan Kennedy calls a first-rate column on the guy who died after being detained by police during the post-Celtics-win crackdown.

E. 6th Street in South Boston shut for much of the night:

Herald: BPD tragedy: Young cop commits suicide.
Globe: Suicide suspected after Hub officer is found dead.

But Boston Police need to review their techniques and training for emergency situations to reduce the odds of more crashes, Suffolk County DA Dan Conley says.

Conley announced today that his office found no reason to charge Officer Jess Stots with the death of Ann-Marie McNally in a collision at West Broadway and D Street on Nov. 10, 2007.

Stots was racing toward a report of an officer in trouble and a man with a knife when he entered the intersection just as McNally did.

"The evidence is clear that Ms. McNally acted cautiously and reasonably and bears no responsibility for the collision," Conley said. At the same time, however, the fact that Stots was responding to an emergency situation was a mitigating factor on his behalf, Conley said.

Conley said he is urging the Boston Police Department to review its policies related to emergency calls to ensure the safety of civilian motorists - by reviewing training, policies on red lights and intersections and communication between cruisers and dispatchers. Police should also look at the potential use of dashboard cameras in cruisers.

"The McNally family, and everyone who knew Ann-Marie, must live with her loss forever," Conley said. "We owe it to them to do everything we can so that some positive, meaningful change can arise from their tragic loss and not one more family goes through what her loved ones have suffered."

Looks like the Boston Police are investigating a blog called Badgewars.com that might paint them in a less than favorable light.

The Massachusetts Liberal is glad to see that things in Boston are now quiet enough for the police to investigate a blog:

Yeah, Badgewars is pretty nasty stuff. Just the sort of thing we should be defending in a society that values free, frank and open discussion. I seem to recall a line from childhood too:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.

Bullets and knives on the other hand. ...

Lewis Forman wonders why he didn't think of such a site:

... It's about time that the fraternity known as the Boston Police Department are called to task on their behaviour while our tax money goes to their ever ballooning pensions and salaries. But for the department to go after a site that uses free speech to bring light to their shortcomings? Please. Spend your time more wisely by putting the force on diets and see if they can run down a felon in a 100 yard dash...

If Boston cab-fleet owners want fare increases, they should be forced to clean up their acts, City Council President Maureen Feeney says in a letter to Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who oversees taxi fares in Boston.

The taxicab industry has been described as "sharecropping on wheels" with drivers forced to pay thousands of dollars in fees before they can earn any salary. This system penalizes both drivers and passengers. It is time for a comprehensive look at our taxi cab system in Boston. I ask you to strongly consider establishing a commission to review the taxi cab industry in Boston and recommend reforms to address the serious concerns raised both by passengers and by drivers.

My office has received several reports of illegal and out-of-town cabs operating in Boston, and of illegal kickbacks from hotel doormen to livery services. Taxi cab drivers face serious challenges and, in addition to your hearing today, I hope you will continue to work with them to address these issues. ...

Globe: Taxi drivers push for fare increases.

Earlier:
Unfare?
Boston to Brookline cabbies: Butt out.

Don't bother calling 911.

Jasonik gets a couple of shots of civilian cars - with ticket books on the dash - parked illegally at the bus stop at Symphony Hall. Then he books it when he notices some uniforms at the entrance gesturing and pointing at him.

Kiko Pulido sentenced today in federal court, after pleading guilty last fall to being the ringleader of a coke-distribution and protection ring.

Commissioner Ed Davis's statement:

Today's sentencing of Roberto Pulido closes a sad chapter for the Boston Police Department. Our department is comprised of officers who find Pulido's actions despicable and the punishment fitting. The resilience of our agency is evident in the great work being done officers every day resulting in across the board reductions in crime statistics. The Boston Police pledge to work closely with the community to earn their trust and repair the damage done by this incident.

Police have said investigations continue.

Globe: Retraining, maybe discipline for 911 worker who didn't dispatch anybody to a Hyde Park beating immediately despite several calls from neighbors:

The call taker, who was not identified, knew the man was bleeding and needed help, but categorized the call as lower priority because the assailant was gone, Driscoll said.

Earlier:
Which Washington Street?

When police ordered Alan Nystedt of Haverhill to fold up his folding chair and remove himself and his shopping cart from in front of St. Paul's Cathedral on Tremont Street yesterday, he refused. And because he didn't have a permit to "occupy a city sidewalk," they arrested him.

Police say Nystedt had set up shop in front of the church to protest something involving the church (the BPDNews report does not specify what; anybody remember seeing him?).

On arrival, officers observed a white male seated in a wooden director's chair sitting next to a cart filled with religious paraphernalia. The suspect was handing out the paraphernalia while occupying the public sidewalk. Moreover, the suspect was displaying a sign with written statements criticizing and protesting the church. ...

Police say they asked him to move twice - and asked if he had a permit. When he refused to move and said he had no permit, he was taken in, police say.

There are at least two things wrong with this alleged cruiser - actually just a prop for a movie being filmed in Southie. See if you can spot them. If not, Greg MacKay, who took the photo, provides the answers. Actually, one of the errors might be a bit hard to see; MacKay provides a larger version for you to examine.

Meanwhile, M@tty1378 spies a New Jersey cruiser in front of the Legal Seafood at the Burlington Mall.

Both the officer and the other driver taken away after the crash at Morton and Washington streets Monday evening.

Michele McPhee takes a look at corruption cases in the BPD since 2004, under three police commissioners, concludes there's more to come, based on current steroid investigation. She also describes what happened when current Commissioner Ed Davis showed up in the room where a Boston cop was being interrogated after his arrest on corruption charges:

For a minute or so, Davis glared at the disgraced cop in his BPD blues. Then he tore the badge off Ortiz's chest, snapping, "You are no longer a Boston police officer. You don't deserve to wear this."

So the department has postponed its Safe Homes program again.

Request for the Globe: You mention in the story you interviewed the local leader of the New Black Panther Party twice. Can we hope that this means you'll be doing a story on the party for those of us who didn't even know it existed until we read your story and then went online to learn that part of the party's platform is to organize armed "Black People's Militias" and to stop blacks from "snitching" and cooperating with police? See Point 7 in the party's 10-point platform.

Channel 4 reports Thomas Joyce, 46, is charged with breaking into the women's home around 10:30 p.m. Friday after St. Patrick's celebrations. He now faces charges of false imprisonment, battery, obstruction and criminal trespass.

The Globe injects the news:

As many as a dozen officers have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury investigating steroid use and after-hours parties in the Boston Police Department - an offshoot of a probe that led to the convictions of three patrolmen last year, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the case.

Earlier:
18 years for corrupt Boston cop.
Somebody in the Boston Police Department stole a lot of drugs.
Police commissioner: Swift, forceful, aggressive action against any police corruption.
Corrupt cop to the klink.
When crooked cops testify against other crooked cops.

Nelson Carrasquillo sentenced today in federal court for his role in protecting a shipment of cocaine trucked from the western part of the state to Boston.

The Herald reports on Boston's police civilian review board, which is supposed to examine alleged abuse by Boston Police:

... Since Mayor Thomas M. Menino created the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel and Complaint Mediation Program in March, the three-member board has convened just 11 times, in six locations - all of them closed to the public, said corporation counsel William Sinnott.

The meetings lasted two hours on average, Sinnott said, but no minutes were taken to record what transpired. ...

At least until the Globe started asking questions; now the department says it will enforce its own existing policy against letting cops with restraining orders against them carry service weapons.

Gary McGath cannot believe a Boston lawyer faces charges for using his cell phone to video a drug arrest on the Common last Oct. 1:

... Officer Peter Savalis was apparently doing something he didn't want to be caught doing, so he arrested [attorney Simon] Glik. The City of Boston brought felony wiretapping charges. The charges against him simultaneously claim that his recording action was surreptitious and that his holding out the phone obstructed the cop. That's right, Savalis is simultaneously claiming that he almost didn't notice the phone and that it was so much in the way that the drug suspect almost got away. ...