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SUV Scofflaw Scot Free
By Brett on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 2:29pm
Cruiser struck in JP. Despite catching up to the vehicle and chasing it for roughly a mile to the Brookline border, the officer failed to get the make, model, or license plate- or a description better than "a white SUV".
Update: the comments in the Globe article have more news than the story itself, so either Boston Police Media Relations dropped the ball on this (all officers and employees are forbidden from speaking directly to the media) or the Globe did. Apparently police did catch up to the vehicle, but the driver was not found.
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Comments
The guy had just been hit.
The guy had just been hit. Perhaps all his energy was focused on driving safely while keeping the SUV in sight til other cruisers could intercept. I'd cut him a little slack.
Update: The above comment was a response to the original criticism of Boston cops, which has been toned down.
Struck Cruiser
I passed by (and nearly collided) with the SUV (i think it was a navigator) and caravan of cop cars speeding up Perkins Street towards the J-Way from the Brookline side of the Pond. In my rearview mirror I thought I saw them cross the J-Way back into JP. There were at least 10 cruisers following the SUV at about 60 MPH. My window was down, due to the lovely weather, and the stench of burning rubber was overwhelming. I then circled the pond, and there were many more cops involved combing the area - they were not a car's length behind the SUV when I saw them. How he fled is beyond me!
wrong information here all around
the boston.com story is wrong and Ill leave it at that.
At 19:40, the Globe site
At 19:40, the Globe site still has no updates/corrections on the story.
I hope a certain Globe staffer is working hard this evening to get better information.
I assume the BPD should be able to tell him things like roughly how many BPD officers were in pursuit of the suspect vehicle, even if there is a complicated or sensitive situation that they're not yet ready to talk about in detail.
Had the Globe not made an immediate non-story story out of a story, there wouldn't be so much urgency to get the story...
I feel stupid for assuming the Globe info was reasonably accurate.
Yeah I witnessed it too, so after I read online
I called E-13 to give them (if they didn't have it) the plate, make & model, and they had the info already. In fact, they had already picked up the vehicle, as the comments on Boston.com indicated.
I assume (pure conjecture here) what happened here is the reporter talked to one officer who was there but did not personally see the plate or make/model- but other officers on scene had the info, just didn't have time to report it.
There were a LOT of units in pursuit.
In cruiser video
In many communities, the whole incident would have been captured by the video camera in the cruiser.
Something to think about.
yep
...but the reason Boston police don't want them in their cruisers is because most of them are automatically activated any time they use their lights.
So, you'd get lots of clips of them blowing through intersections because they don't want to wait for the lights, escorting gay strippers to Providence, etc.
Do you really think all Boston cops are bad?
Are there none that meet your exacting standards of performing decent work?
nope, I don't
Do you really think all Boston cops are bad?
Of course not. Do you really think all Boston cops are good?
Do we need to go down the laundry list of corruption, drug running, pimping, civil rights violations, perjury, deaths of civilians from "non lethal" weapons, while under arrest, or killed in motor vehicle collisions by Boston officers? The utter disregard for parking laws? The enormous cash cow of construction details? The fiercely secretive press relations department that lies through its teeth or presents a stone wall of silence? A department that has a proven record of going after young minority men simply to close cases? The secretive "review board" that never gets any cases anyway?
Brett you could make the same argument about....
people from Roxbury, Asain drivers, West Roxbury Youth, southerners, blacks, People that live in Newton, teachers, soldiers, politicians, gays, people on welfare, the homeless....etc, etc.....
There is a bad and a stereotype in every one of those groups, and you could write a story every day about one of those groups and how bad they are.
Face it, you hate cops (and point it out all the time) as much as the racist hates black people, the bigot hates gays, and so on and so on.
I have a feeling that cops are a group of people that aren't afraid to treat someone like you the way you deserve to be treated, and you can't stand that because you probably think they work for you because you pay taxes and their salary. It's too bad the world doesn't work that way.
ah never mind. You are probably a nice guy and you simply use the internet as an anonymous way to vent your frustrations (as I do as well). It just doesn't accomplish anything in the end (which I have figured out, but I think you haven't grasped yet)
so the taxpayers have nothing to say about police behavior???
So who does pay their salaries? Who are they supposed to be accountable to if not the citizenry?
I don't think cops work for me personally, but I do think that the police, along with too many politicians and employees of government around here, forget that they are supposed to serve the public, and that the taxpayers do pay their salaries.
I was raised by a civil servant, and many in my extended family worked for various school systems and other taxpayer funded organizations. The attitude that working for the government means never forgetting who you serve was ever present. I don't get why any public service worker can ever believe any differently, badge or no.
Im not saying in general
Im saying that when someone acts like an ahole, they will get treated like an ahole, and just beacuse that person "works" for you (teacher, cop, librarian), it doesn't mean you get to tell them what do do just because you "pay their salary".
Many people think like that and its sad.
Thanks, Pete
That was a long time coming.
or maybe corruption infuriates me
Face it, you hate cops (and point it out all the time) as much as the racist hates black people, the bigot hates gays, and so on and so on.
No. Why? Because none of those groups represent a class of society in which we place enormous power, responsibility, and authority. Maybe because of that, I have higher standards for them, and no tolerance for "blue line" protect-anyone-with-a-badge crap.
If law enforcement is all about truth, justice, etc...why protect those who willfully violate the trust placed in them by society?
I have a feeling that cops are a group of people that aren't afraid to treat someone like you the way you deserve to be treated, and you can't stand that because you probably think they work for you because you pay taxes and their salary. It's too bad the world doesn't work that way.
Stop putting words in my mouth. I've never said or implied anything you've said.
Like all people interested in civil liberties, it disgusts me to see people in positions of authority abusing that authority. It's that fucking simple.
Go read through my posts more carefully, like the ones where I praise the Seattle police department for being open, honest, and holding its officers responsible when they assault and arrest someone with a camera. The department admitted publicly that curiosity in police activity was natural and that recording how officers affect an arrest was in the public interest.
Contrast that with any number of incidents involving BPD officers in the wrong, like when the officer rammed the baby carriage and BPD issued press statements that blatantly blamed the mother for throwing herself and her child at the truck...or how about the lawyer arrested on Boston Common for videotaping something the city and BPD don't like people to see, ie a drug arrest?
Who isn't infuriated by corruption?
And who isn't upset when people abuse their power and authority? If I had to rank scumbags on a list from 1-10, corrupt cops would probably be inbetween child molestors and drug dealers.
But you go to the extreme in cases that you know nothing about except for what you look up on "law.com" or wikipedia, or even worse, some of these boston.com articles.
Look at this thread for example. All you wanted to show is how dumb some cop is because he can't read a license plate after he got hit and couldn't get a description of the vehicle that hit him after chasing him. Your intent was to show the incompetence of a police officer and not show or write about the real story.
You could probably care less if the officer was hurt or not or if the guy got away was dangerous or not (since you didn't write anything about it).
"Go read through my posts more carefully, like the ones where I praise the Seattle police department for being open, honest, and holding its officers responsible when they assault and arrest someone with a camera."
When have you ever praised the boston police for suspending officers or firing them when those officers break the law? Did you equally scold those Seattle officers for committing the same crime?
"No. Why? Because none of those groups represent a class of society in which we place enormous power, responsibility, and authority. Maybe because of that, I have higher standards for them, and no tolerance for "blue line" protect-anyone-with-a-badge crap."
Im talking about you stereotyping and generalizing about a group of people. A cop hater that sees a cop go through a red light with his lights on and then turns them off will probably think the cop just did that so he could get through the red light. The racist that sees a black man in a while neighborhood probably thinks that black man is going to break into a house. Both the racist and the cop hater might be right in that situation, but they are both stereotying and generalizing because of their beliefs. And your pattern of cop-hating posting does exactly that.
"Stop putting words in my mouth. I've never said or implied anything you've said"
The way you talk to people on here is enough to imply a lot about what kind of person you are Brett.
Like all people interested in civil liberties, it disgusts me to see people in positions of authority abusing that authority. It's that fucking simple.
If its that simple, then what is the point of this thread? An interest in civil liberties?
Again, sometimes words get lost on here and you could be a nice guy whom I could have a beer with, but all you care about is pointing out the wrong in everything, and it gets annoying.
So Brett
I guess you're saying it's okay to hate white people, right?
And to hate men? And especially white men?
Scot free
One "t", as in referring to a Scottish person.
fixed- thanks
n/t
one etymology of "scot-free"
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/scot%20free.html
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sco1.htm