Boston News Today - DENOTE SPEECH

Image via @ChiefLinskey

There are many ways to follow the trial of admitted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. From the meat and potatoes mainstream to the far tangents of Twitter, there’s no shortage of coverage and opinions, with the social media realm often being much more entertaining, if eons less informative, than its rote reportage counterpart. With that in mind, consider this an homage to all the recent images and words of wisdom shared by former Boston Police Department superintendent-in-chief Daniel Linskey.

Since leaving the force to start his own private consulting firm last year, Linskey has addressed dozens of law enforcement agencies worldwide, from Finland to Mexico to Australia to Egypt and Morocco. His Twitter profile serves as an advertisement for said trainings, complete with pics of Linskey gallantly commanding in moments of chaos, and a bio that includes his role as “Incident Commander for the Boston Marathon Bombing Attack.” Beyond the sales pitch though, his feed is a cornucopia of consciousness, from John Wayne quotes to various GIFs of Old Glory and cockpit selfies.

At his most engaging, Linskey writes lines that can be rather jarring. Especially if understood in the wrong context. Take, for example, a March 4 tweet accompanied by an aerial pic of the Windy City in which Linskey asked, “Is Chicago ready for a terrorist attack?” Given, the following sentence clarified: “#Linskeygroup training Illinois frontline to prevent and mitigate an attack.” Nevertheless, the former chief keeps us on the edge of our seats with that and other ominous reminders that “the enemy is among us.”

In regard to Tsarnaev and other murderous rubbish, Linskey fashions himself as an expert on punishment as well as stopping crime. He recently extolled a pledge by King Abdullah of Jordan to extinguish evildoers, in one case tweeting out a Fox News article about the situation there with a custom kicker, “How to deal with terrorists.” At the beginning of the Marathon bombing trial, Linskey also weighed in about how Tsarnaev should be handled: “He admitted to the bombing I’m not sure the death penalty is appropriate we should denote [sic] a bomb next [sic] him and see what the will of Allah is.” The suggestion was deleted from his account soon after, but not before his sentiments were noted by followers and captured in screengrabs.

We’re not attacking Linskey’s right to say or write these things; in fact we encourage him to continue hammering the keys, as his words convey much more about the worldview of many law enforcement higher-ups than do press releases and filtered propaganda. Furthermore, we’re well aware that he’s no longer serving the police department here, and that he has moved on to influencing officers around the world.

In fact that’s all the more reason for us to pay close attention to his Twitter feed.

[Media Farm is wrangled by DigBoston News+Features Editor Chris Faraone]