Thin blue line separates community from police

Yawu Miller

In response to the upsurge of violent crimes in Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino and Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole have called on the community to come forward with information on perpetrators.

Following a December quadruple murder in Dorchester, Menino responded by pulling “Stop Snitchin’” tee shirts off the shelves of a local retailer, grabbing headlines and eventually persuading the retailer to stop making the shirts.

But when it comes to facilitating the free flow of information, the mayor’s efforts apparently stop at the thin blue line. Asked last week whether he would support a civilian review board for the Boston Police, Menino said he would not.

“We don’t need one,” he said.

In the last five years, of the 274 civilian complaints filed against Boston Police officers, just 14 were sustained. The department’s Division of Internal Affairs’ five percent rate of sustained complaints does little to foster good relations between the community and the department, according to City Councilor Felix Arroyo.

“People distrust the police,” he said. “You cannot expect people to be open with the police.”

As slim as a five percent rate of sustained complaints appears, that figure does not reflect the number of people who are unable or unwilling to file complaints. In Banner interviews, many who complained of police abuse said police officers at district station houses and at the department’s Columbus Avenue headquarters discouraged them from filing complaints.

Activists say that although the officers’ reluctance to initiate the process violates department protocol, the practice of discouraging complainants is widespread.

“Captains, lieutenants and sergeants in their station houses are very reluctant to have complaints filed against their officers under their command,” said NAACP Boston Branch President Leonard Alkins, who assists people in filing complaints. “They try to discourage you or they’ll take a complaint, say they’ll get back to you and try to wait you out.”

If the 274 civilian complaints filed in a five-year period seems like a large number for number for a city the size of Boston, which has a population of more than 581,000, consider Washington, D.C., a city of 553,000, which registered 326 complaints in 2005 alone.

The District of Columbia’s civilian-led Police Complaints Board’s Office of Police Complaints last year forwarded 25 cases to the U.S. Attorney’s office, assigned 5 cases to a complaint examiner, referred 18 for mediation and investigated 215 cases.

Each year, the D.C. board publishes a public report detailing the outcomes of its investigations. The Boston Police Department, by contrast, was refused certification by the national Commission for the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies because of the lack of transparency in its Internal Affairs division.

When complainants do successfully file with IAD, their cases often move forward at a glacial pace, activists say.

Ron Bell, who heads the organization Dunk the Vote, recalls a 1996 incident in which a 15-year-old in an after-school program was arrested, one staffer was punched by an officer and another called a “b—-” by an officer.

“We tried to go through the process,” he said. “We stopped trying. The police department has no checks and balances.”

Incidents of police brutality, which form the basis of many complaints, contribute to the lack of trust of police officers in the community, activists say. According to a survey conducted by the police department in 2004, just 40 percent of residents of Police Area B2, which covers Roxbury, felt that Boston police were fair and respectful. Sixty-six percent of Area B residents told surveyors that police profiling is a problem.

Lisa Thurau Gray, director of the Suffolk University Law School’s Juvenile Justice Center, said a civilian review board could improve relations between police and community residents.

“There is a major disjuncture between what tactics the police think are effective and what citizens of Boston see works and abides by their rights,” she commented. “There is a major gap in communication and understanding that a lot of dialogue and a civil review board could be useful in achieving.”

While cities like Springfield, New York and Atlanta have civilian review boards, political resistance to such a board in Boston runs high. Commissioner O’Toole last year voiced public support for a civilian board, but the mayor has been a staunch opponent.

On the City Council, Arroyo, Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey are the only members who have gone on record in favor of such a board — in defiance of the politically powerful Patrolman’s Union.