FROM TOP TO BOTTOM RANKS, BPD IS CLUELESS
Image by Chris Faraone
Let’s preface this polemic with the same superficial line that every parrot in the media meaninglessly burps: Not all cops are bad. Or racist. Or the world’s worst Uber customers.
I say that not merely to mock the incompetent hacks and columnists who use such sentiments in lieu of consciously considering the epidemic of police brutality, but also to remind readers of the humanity of the good cops, because the voices of those officers are so rarely heard.
For the first few weeks of major Black Lives Matter rallies and related actions in the Hub, I assumed that Boston Police Department Commissioner William Evans was just playing dumb. Clearly, I thought, he and the other seemingly intelligent higher-ups understood that the public isn’t only furious about the killing of Michael Brown by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri, or the death of Eric Garner in New York.
Now, a few months into the most robust protest momentum Boston has seen in years, I’m convinced otherwise. Now I realize they do not get it, and by “they” I mean the white guys representing the department, from the upper echelons down to the rank-and-file. Let’s commence at the top of the pecking order with Evans.
“The majority of the community is behind the police force,” the commissioner claimed before planned demonstrations for First Night. “It’s not the community that is going to be up in arms protesting. This is for the most part people from outside the city.”
That’s Evans saying, in the most socially acceptable way possible, that police brutality, or whatever those ridiculous kids are hollering about, is not a Boston issue. It’s a crass and blatant lie for any number of reasons, but it’s also tone deaf and dismissive, a glowing example of how even Evans, presumably the best of the best, is reluctant to acknowledge any real problems. What kind of foundation is that for a community policing model?
Those are the more respectable BPD delegates. In the sub-basement of the department food chain is the Pax Centurion, the official newsletter of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association (BPPA). For decades, the Pax has proudly exemplified just how out of touch some beat cops are with Boston’s changing landscape, and the recent holiday edition carried on with that tradition. Primarily focused on the Black Lives Matter movement, one tract claims, “The [Michael Brown] case has sparked numerous protests from college kids looking for a cause, former ‘Occupy Boston’ radicals, and other anarchists.” Among other examples of creative compassion in the latest Pax:
ON DEMONSTRATIONS: “The Boston Police Department has wrongly—for reasons of political correctness—described them as ‘peaceful protests.’ There is nothing ‘peaceful’ about sitting down in the middle of Tremont St. at rush hour to prevent working people from simply going home.”
- ON PROGRESS: The Pax claims protest behavior “used to be … known as disorderly conduct, subject to immediate arrest.”
- ON PRIVACY: One article, “Meet some of our detractors … ,” takes aim at a 20-year-old man who is described as living at “‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters,’ a homeless shelter.” Under a picture of this particular “detractor” protesting outside the Massachusetts State House (and holding a sign charging, “From Boston To Ferguson, Cops Are Racist Murderers”), the writer identifies the young man and details a police report from an arrest of his that involved a knife. The cop’s message to the homeless demonstrator: “You are simply a bum, a loser and a thug.”
- ON ERIC GARNER: “A tragedy, yes, but a self-inflicted one.”
ON POLITICS: “Liberals created the conditions, the rules and the ordinances that we, the police, are left to deal with. And then they turn their video cameras and cellphones on us and tell us that we’re brutal and racist.”
- ON FANBOYS: There’s a very special letter to the editor, hand-picked and re-printed from the Lowell Sun, by a guy wondering “Where is the outrage over [Kevin Quick],” whom the reader writes “was kidnapped and murdered by four black gang members.” “Where is the white outrage?” he cries. “Where is the hatemonger Al Sharpton?”
Some people reading this are probably outraged. Others may be thinking, “How come nobody knows about this?” But they do know. Activists in Boston’s communities of color have derided the Pax for years, as have organizers from Occupy Boston and members of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers. Just like Black Lives Matter protesters, they’ve argued that cop culture in Boston needs to change, including the BPPA’s bigoted rag. Sadly, from the bottom to the top of the totem pole, their message has fallen on hard heads.
“So we just keep doing what we do and hopefully all is well,” reads the latest Pax. “The protests, demonstrations and riots, well this too shall pass. That is of course until the next one. We all know that there will be a next one.”
With that kind of attitude, they can bet on it.
Chris Faraone is the News+Features Editor of DigBoston and the Director of Editorial for the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. He is also the author of four books including '99 Nights with the 99 Percent' and 'Heartbreak Hell.'
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As a retired “white commander” who carried a BPD shield for over 30 years, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve found myself in agreement with an opinion expressed in the Pax Centurion. And I am most certainly not alone in this opinion. If you did your homework as a reporter, you’d soon discover that the Pax is written by a select few retrograde minds who pine for the good ole days of the TPF replete with riot helmets and riot sticks, i.e., “hats and bats” (Clue: you are probably not old enough to know what the TPF was as it went away in the late 70s, so please look it up). The Pax, while outwardly appearing so to those ignorant of how the BPD actually thinks and operates, does NOT represent the majority mindset of the Boston Police Department. You might also be reminded that Commissioner Evans was singular in his approach and outreach to the Occupy movement, and as then chief of patrol made certain that Occupy could express its views vociferously, as would any other group of people seeking redress in our city. Such was NOT the approach in places such as NYC and Oakland, CA, where heavy handed tactics and brutality seemed to rule the day. It should come as no surprise that the BPD has made very few arrests in the most recent demonstrations (the majority have been made by the Massachusetts State Police – a different story there). In closing, when you judge all “white commanders” on the perceived actions of a few, then you and your site are certainly as bigoted as you feel the Pax Centurion is. Therefore in the future, I would ask that you kindly refrain from including Commissioner Evans, his subordinates and I in the category of white police commanders who don’t “get it,” because we actually do.
As usual those judging from behind a computer just do not get t at all. Walk the walk and see what is happening, not just selling articles. Do I agree with the PAX I will let time tell. But they speak from experience something that the above article writer should learn to do.
So, anyone who has a differing opinion of Chris Faraone, Occupy Boston, MAMLEO or “Black” Lives Matter is a bigot? Really? I bet if anyone of these groups set up camp in front of Chris’ apartment building and inconvenienced him he’d be the first one complaining the police weren’t doing their job.
Succinct and snappy article, yet so important. Readers interested learning more about the BPD’s dirty underbelly should websearch “Clean UP BPPA.”
I’ve spent enough time with Boston cops that I’m forced to admit you seem like mostly well-intentioned individuals rather than villains who wake up in the morning with nefarious intentions. On the other hand, its inescapable that like cops everywhere, your loyalty to one another rather than the larger community causes a lot of serious problems. The Pax is only one symptom of that. The killing, with impunity, of unarmed black men is another.
It’s encouraging you personally think Pax’s content doesn’t deserve support, and say your opinion is representative of your former colleagues, yet it’s important to note that the Pax exists because the Boston Police Patrolman’s Association pays for its racially offensive, absurdly politicized content. Yeah, it’s mostly one guy who churns it out, but the patrolmen’s union has supported its production for decades.
As for Bill Evans, if he understands what the #BlackLivesMatter protests are about, he should have articulated that publicly. Instead, he made a statement that Faraone correctly identifies as both “tone deaf and dismissive” and (because those protestors are mostly locals, without a doubt) a “a crass and blatant lie.” I hear you when you say you and other brass at the BPD do “get it,” but hearing you say it and seeing it evidenced are two different things.
If guys like Evans, Marty Walsh, and Col. Tim Alben of the State Police really do “get it,” they
should have responded positively to the demands of the Ferguson protestors which were, in turn, adopted as the demands of the protestors who blocked I-93 North and South of Boston in January 2015. Instead, I hear crickets.
Do you, personally, support the #BlackLivesMatter movement and feel bothered it’s been implied you don’t support it? Or is defending the reputation of the local law enforcement community your only concern?