Hub cops get pass from Internal Affairs

Yawu Miller

Of the 274 civilians who filed complaints against the Boston Police Department for use of force in the last five years, only fourteen were sustained.

Thus, 95 percent of police officers who had use of force complaints filed against them were not sanctioned. For civilians contemplating filing a complaint against police officer, the prospects don’t seem good.

“It’s absurd for anyone to think that when citizens file complaints against police, that 95 percent of the complaints are false,” said NAACP Boston Branch President Leonard Alkins.

Boston Police spokesman Sgt. Detective Thomas Sexton said the statistics themselves fail to reveal the gray areas in the complaints. Some complainants, he said, may fail to follow through on their complaints, resulting in a not sustained determination.

“The Internal Affairs Division does a great job of investigation the complaints to the fullest extent that they can,” he said. “But a lot of the time people who are being arrested are unclear as to what constitutes excessive force.”

Even accounting for gray areas and fraudulent claims, activists interviewed by the Banner said the 95 percent exoneration rate for police officers is too high.

“The reality is it’s very difficult to get the police to be hard on the police,” said City Councilor Chuck Turner.

The Boston Police Internal Affairs Division has long been criticized for its lack of transparency. The National Commission for the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, a national organization of police officials formed to improve delivery of law enforcement service, has refused to give the Boston Police Department accreditation because of a lack of transparency in IAD.

Although the MBTA Police Department has been accredited by CALEA, the Boston Police Department and most police departments in major cities function with the same lack of transparency.

“Police departments are highly unlikely to find an officer guilty of use of force,” said Howard Freeman, president of the board of the National Police Accountability Project.

Alkins said IAD’s lack of transparency gives complainants little faith that they’ll receive a fair hearing.

“You never see how they go about conducting an investigation or how they arrive at a decision,” he said. “These statistics show a need for a community review board with subpoena power. That’s the only way you’re going to restore public confidence in the police.”

Activists and elected officials in the black community have long called for a civilian review board, a call that was echoed by the 1992 St. Clair Commission report. Mayor Thomas Menino has vocally opposed outside review of police misconduct.

Turner said without outside scrutiny, police will likely continue to find officers not at fault in their investigations of use of force.

“People say ‘why bother?’” he said. “It just makes the situation worse because the police know they can get away with almost anything.”


For more on this subject, see editorial here.