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Three fired cops: An anti-vax screamer, a Jan. 6 putschist and a guy who felt Breonna Taylor deserved to get shot to death

The Boston Police Department has released the detailed findings of a deputy superintendent that led to the recent firings of Sgt. Shana Cottone and officers Joseph Abasciano and Michael Geary, in response to a Universal Hub public-records request.

Cottone, a sergeant at the E-5 station in West Roxbury, was fired for several incidents involving her fight against city Covid-19 vaccination efforts, according to the findings.

These included not assigning officers to a shift protecting the mayor's house in Roslindale, skipping out on her work at E-5 to attend roll call at another district where the mayor would be speaking, continuing to record that roll call even after being told by a deputy superintendent to stop and refusing orders to stop screaming through a bullhorn outside the mayor's house while off-duty - because she had been suspended. She was also charged for refusing to leave pizza places on Mission Hill and in the Fenway after restaurant workers called 911 because she and several other anti-vaxxers were harassing them because they would not serve the maskless group. She screamed insults at both restaurant workers and at BPD officers and supervisors who responded to those calls.

According to the findings, Cottone also suggested that "rats get bats" when discussing a fellow E-5 sergeant she felt had "snitched" on her for not assigning cops to cover the mayor's house, which she told her commander and others was pointless because she claimed the mayor was out to harm cops and didn't want their protection - in a discussion that grew so heated one sergeant had to clear an E-5 hallway to keep officers from hearing it. At another point, as Mayor Wu left her Roslindale home for City Hall in a police-driven SUV, the findings add, Cottone got in her personal car and followed, yelling at Wu through a bullhorn.

Abasciano, who got close enough to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to see a tug of war between frenzied Trump supporters and police on the steps of the Capitol, but who did not enter the building, was fired for his tweets before and after the failed coup that stated that people who opposed Trump, including Vice President Pence and an assistant secretary of state in Georgia, were traitors, that he couldn't wait to see the Georgia official dragged away in chains, and that what we needed was "a civil war or a violent revolution," the findings state.

A second BPD officer who drove down to DC with Abasciano was not fired, but he did not publicly state his feelings towards elected officials and people who had not voted the same way as him.

Geary was fired for two Facebook comments. In one discussion, he argued that Breonna Taylor, a Louisville, KY EMT who was shot dead in a no-knock raid, deserved what she got, because, he claimed, incorrectly, that she was a heroin dealer, and that it's just too bad that her boyfriend didn't die as well. In another, he responded to an FBI request for help in finding Jan. 6 rioters that "rats get bats."

In concluding his findings on the three cases, Deputy Supt. Richard Dahill acknowledged that BPD officers have First Amendment rights, but that they also have a duty to ensure they don't bring shame on the department or make the public distrust police. All three, he said, failed that duty. For example, in Cottone's case:

I find Sergeant Cottone's repeated and inappropriate actions impaired the working relationships within the Department and with the community, especially in her assigned district that encompasses Mayor Wu's personal residence. I find Sergeant Cottone directly impeded the performance of duties, interfered with the Department operations and, most importantly, undermined public faith in the Boston Police.

Dahill also concluded Cottone violated department rules that require officers to treat each other with respect, not engage in arguments or hurl insults at them.

In Geary's case, Dahill concluded:

I find Officer Geary's posts, individually and collectively, violate Department Rule 102 sect. 03, Conduct. I find the posts, taken at face value, indicate that Officer Geary is unable to impartially and without bias perform his duties as a sworn member of the Department. The comments also suggest he does not recognize his duty to protect the right of all individuals, a commitment to preserving life and property, or respect of our law enforcement partners.

And in Abasciano's case, he wrote:

I find the posts, taken at face value, indicate that Officer Abasciano is unable to impartially and without bias perform his duties as a sworn member of the Department. Officer Abasciano post suggests he views the members of the community as either patriots or traitors. The comments indicate a rigid viewpoint that does not recognize the duty to protect the rights of all individuals, rather it divides people as traitors or patriots. Even after Officer Abasciano was aware that the rally had degenerated into a criminal riot resulting in at least one death and the destruction of property in the US Capitol, Officer Abasciano continued to use incendiary language and blamed Vice President Pence for the events rather than the criminal rioters showing a lack of a commitment to preserving life and property, or respect for our law enforcement partners.

Complete findings:
Cottone (2M PDF).
Abascione (682k PDF).
Geary (2M PDF).

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Comments

The detail scheduling Cottone pulled with Wu’s security is just pure thuggery that could have gotten someone killed.

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Plead the Fifth because you can't plead the First!

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These firings restore my faith in Boston.

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That’s the real issue with police accountability.

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Department Rule 102 sect. 03, Conduct:

Sec. 3 CONDUCT: Employees shall conduct themselves at all times, both on and off duty in
such a manner as to reflect most favorably on the Department. Conduct unbecoming an
employee shall include that which tends to indicate that the employee is unable or unfit to
continue as a member of the Department, or tends to impair the operation of the Department or its employees.

Thanks to Not Judge and Jury farther down the thread.

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Oh, like this has been the gold standard in the past.

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In this country we have what they call Freedom of Speech. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with what they say or think, it goes both ways.

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Punching your boss in the face is a statement, but that's not protected speech.

Telling a customer to fuck off is absolutely speech, but your job isn't safe if that's considered unacceptable workplace conduct.

Organizing an act of terrorism is not protected speech.

These are just 3 examples not directly related to the details above that I can quickly think of that you could argue are acts of speech or expression of an employee but are not protected by the First Amendment. Heck, you could try to claim that murdering someone is just a form of expression, but good luck with that.

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Non-governmental bodies aren't required to respect your freedom of speech, but in this case it is a governmental body making the call. Even in the terrorism case, the burden would be on the government to prove the speech was not protected due to one of the exceptions the law provides. Honestly, the only one that likely has a chance is the one that made a comment about Taylor, and even then the agreement he signed to "maintain the dignity ..." will probably do him in unless he can somehow get that negated as well on free speech grounds.

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This is a case of an employer enforcing a code of conduct on its employees, not the government restricting the speech of its citizens, which is what 1A is there to protect against.

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Deliberate refusal to do one's job is not speech: "not assigning officers to a shift protecting the mayor's house in Roslindale, skipping out on her work at E-5 to attend roll call at another district where the mayor would be speaking, continuing to record that roll call even after being told by a deputy superintendent to stop"

Attempting to overthrow the government for not being adequately racist is not speech.

And not all speech is protected: incitement to riot is a classic example, and relevant here.

The First Amendment may mean that you can't be criminally prosecuted for what you say. It doesn't mean that what someone says is simultaneously so important that it must be protected at all costs, and so meaningless that it can never be used as evidence that they are unwilling or unable to do their jobs. Someone who can't or won't do their job, can reasonably be fired for that. A cop who thinks "the police murdered her while she was asleep in her bed" must mean that the victim had committed a capital crime, should not be a cop.

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I find it helpful to refer to xkcd’s “Free Speech” comic to help clarify how free speech works.

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Officers get sustained complaints all the time. They don't usually get fired for them though.

The arbitrator will rule on whether or not the discipline was excessive or not.

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That rule is subject to differing subjective determinations and thus arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.

There's a constitutional doctrine which deems such rules "void for vagueness," because nobody can say for certain what conduct or speech is proscribed, other than violations of criminal law. One outburst might be ignored, another is punished severely.

Even the "Conduct unbecoming an officer" article in the military justice code only survives because the deference federal courts give to the military means it's not subject to "strict scrutiny" the way this civil service rule would be.

In the cases of Abasciano and Geary, only their political speech is being punished. Abasciano's opinions about the election are constitutionally protected. Even idly stating that a civil war is coming is protected. Geary even made a mistake of fact - that Taylor was in fact a drug dealer. Is making a mistake of fact in a public debate a punishable offense to the extent of firing? I don't think so.

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the officer's right to utter fascist, anti-democratic, and/or idiotic anti-medical-science opinions under the Constitution, but the fact that it's the Department's call as to whether that might reflect badly on its image and trustworthiness with the public, which is a firing offense.

You have the right to say stupid shit, but that doesn't mean your head won't justifiably roll over it.

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But if the BPD suspended someone for 30 days ten years ago for doing similar stuff (instead of firing them), then the arbitrator always takes that into consideration.

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"[M]ight reflect badly on its image and trustworthiness with the public" is really, really vague and very easy to abuse for an organization which, by virtue of its existence as a government agency, is held to a much higher standard regarding employee speech. Calling people on the other side of a political divide "traitors" is probably constitutionally-protected speech.

The statement "rats get bats" might potentially rise to being unprotected as an incitement to violence, but we don't prosecute people for saying "snitches get stitches" which carries a similar veiled threat.

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That's a statement that could legitimately lead to firing in my opinion, as it's a core mission of the police to encourage citizen informants and reporting of crimes.

Calling federal elected officials and officials in other states "traitors," no.

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I respect officers of the law and the majority of cops are good servants of the public trust, but there are many who are thugs in uniform with a license to abuse your rights. Whenever some of the thugs get removed, I expect the majority of good cops are happy, although probably don't demonstrate it publicly among their peers.

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"Probably don't demonstrate it among their peers."
That's indicative of a problem. Maybe they are afraid, because they know there are more bad cops than you think there are.

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to ask about how they feel about these firings…Did the union have a big protest at the common for those fired officers with 2,000 Boston cops in support that I missed?

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Two of these three had notorious reputations within the BPD (Abasciano and Cottone). They were widely considered problem children for years even before this.

If you read Shana Cuttone’s report, you can see several instances of other cops reporting her, and questioning her obviously failing mental state.

Good riddance. The fact that she was even promoted in the first place is/was on the department itself and not on us. Everyone who worked with her knew she was a psycho for years.

No one will miss them.

- a Boston Cop

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doing to try to address these issues within the department? Seems like if there's a known person with mental issues working as a cop and the department is refusing to do anything about this, isn't it time for individuals to step and up and do more than just file private internal reports, even if there are consequences?

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To make sure legislators loosen labor laws so we can fire these cops? The memos are private because of those same labor laws. When the BPD sends some one for a mental health evaluation, that isn’t going to be included in FOIA requests so you will never read about it. You want medical privacy laws removed too?

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...I've been involved in efforts to end qualified immunity. It's not firing, but will that work for you?

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Nothing. I’m not in a position to fire someone in the BPD. It doesn’t work like that.

If I were, I’d have fired them too.

- a Boston Cop

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Good luck changing the union - any of them.

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I'm still waiting to meet the first "good cop" I've ever met in my life.

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Most of the people who have met you aren’t that impressed either. (But seriously go out and see the world a little).

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Resorting to ad hominem attacks, especially in an anonymous way (posting your name does not reduce anonymity - unless there is a giant meetup of UHub commenters where everyone attends), gives no information about the person attacked. But it gives solid and extremely unattractive information about the attacker.

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It is really one disingenuous anon response to another disingenuous anon comment. Don't break your brain on this one Daan....

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impressed me more than others on the humanity front. But I also count a couple as my friends, and they are exceedingly decent people, dedicated pros doing a sometimes impossible and often dangerous job. Our far-apart politics are not an obstacle to our friendship, though I've lost others in different professions over those kind of arguments.

Those are anecdotes, and it's worth noting that I'm a square, unimposing white guy who has managed to avoid confrontational interactions with the police in my lifetime. I still worry about a fringe-right fifth column in this country, both in law enforcement and the military. It's not comforting to me that these dangerous, starkly unsuitable individuals, including one who is clearly suffering from mental illness, were allowed to hang around as long as they did.

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what they want to see. If you're only looking for the negative, you'll find that. If you look for positive, you'll find that.
Of course there are good cops out there. Perhaps you're a person who doesn't live life on the up and up and have had run-ins with cops, doing their jobs to protect the rest of society from you. In that scenario, of course to you the cop is a prick but to the rest of us, that's a cop doing his job.

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Perhaps you're a person who doesn't live life on the up and up and have had run-ins with cops, doing their jobs to protect the rest of society from you.

Yes, if anyone has a negative view of cops, it must be because they're a criminal and "the rest of society" needs the "protection" of cops. /s

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If you have 100 cops and one is bad but the other 99 don't say anything? You then have 100 bad cops.

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for filing the public-records request and for writing this up for us.

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Yes, thanks, Adam! Great job.

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The transcript is listed on that report........(please)

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To Serve and Protect Whom?

Do you know a Boston officer who perpetuates hate, prejudice, or demonstrates beliefs that question their ability to conduct official duty in an impartial manner? Maybe on posts on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe a bumper sticker on their personal vehicle?

Law enforcement agents entangled with extremist ideology are a threat to the public safety of EVERYONE in Boston.

Dare I say... If you see something, say something:

Report it to The Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT)
https://www.boston.gov/departments/police-accountability-and-transparency

FYI here is the rule mentioned in the article:

Department Rule 102 sect. 03, Conduct:

Sec. 3 CONDUCT: Employees shall conduct themselves at all times, both on and off duty in
such a manner as to reflect most favorably on the Department. Conduct unbecoming an
employee shall include that which tends to indicate that the employee is unable or unfit to
continue as a member of the Department, or tends to impair the operation of the Department or its employees.

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mental health treatment and should be relieved of any lethal weapons in her possession immediately."

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Journalism of the first order.

Police officers know who should not have a badge, a uniform, or a gun. Somehow, a culture of loyalty protects bad cops. But it is also a culture of fear.

Speak up?

Consequences.

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It is legislated and case law that government employees can be required to not exercise certain forms of freedom of speech if that restriction supports the mission of the agency.

For Federal employees the Hatch Act is an example. For-profit corporations can impose limits on the freedom of speech in employment. New York Times applies limits to reporters where political campaigns and contributions are concerned.

For local police to require employees - officers and everyone else - to not engage in speech that calls for people to be hurt (rats gets bats), etc. is a reasonable requirement. The requirement is an agreement that the officer or staff member agreed to when hired. Violating the agreement does not rise to the level of a crime because there is no basis that government is limiting speech as an act of government.

Where a police department is concerned, while it is a government agency - the situation is one of an employer who has a contract with the employee to respect certain rules. If the employee violates the rules then the employee is acting within the rule of the contract which include penalties for violating the contract. No Constitutional right of freedom of speech is violated.

To see this otherwise indicates a belief that Cottone et al. have rights to violate contracts which no one else has.

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S. Cottone put her life at risk to save some residents from a North End fire. Look it up.

I hate all of this fascist bullshit. At the same time, liberals need to recognize something a bit more particular than their cliche 'life is complicated' and that thing that needs understanding is this: THIS IS AN ISSUE OF COGNITION.

Somehow, until cognition can take a front and center place in our public schools, we are failing.

Had I said this prior to Trump nobody would take me seriously. But now, you have to, don't you? Because there are A LOT of them; they cannot think; they cannot reflect; they cannot tell the difference between a thought and a feeling. They are right-wing, but in their cognitive impairments they bear a lot of similarities with hive-minded, "high"-minded Californians like Nancy Pelusi.

Generalities prevail. The surface of everything prevails. Thinking, no such thing.

sadly, a heart of gold will do you NO GOOD if your mind is basically disliterate shit. And this is true across the political spectrum.

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impairments just like Cottone? You know, I never noticed it before, but they're practically two peas in a pod!

You're joking, right?

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Luke Warmer is criticizing Pelosi from the left of where she sits. When I read what they wrote that way it began to make sense. But I agree, it reads like centrist bullshit.

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Reactionary thinking and conflation of thoughts and feelings happens at both ends of the spectrum - that's the whole point of the horseshoe theory. I wouldn't call out Pelosi specifically as an example of far-left wing theory - she's certainly crafty enough to get legislation passed on razor margins - but there's definitely others in that umbrella that are just as crazy as right wingers.

The problem is the whole country's devolved to who's on whose team instead of recognizing that hair trigger, poorly thought out, belligerent, gut feeling politics is bad regardless of whether they're doing it for causes you like or not.

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Does anyone know why Abasciano was on FLMA? He had "job related injuries' but had no problem riding in a car back and forth to Washington and marching around watching a crowd of thugs beat the crap out of the Capital Police?

I keep coming back to-- WHO IS HIRING THESE POLICE OFFICERS? Why are they allowed to abuse so many rules the rest of us have to abide by? This is a culture issue. And it will take years to change. But canning this moron is a step in the right direction.

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