New chief vows to raise trust in police

Dan Devine

After 12 years as Superintendent of Police in Lowell, Edward F. Davis III will become the new commissioner of the Boston Police Department, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced Monday. The 50-year-old Davis, a 28-year veteran of the Lowell force, plans to bring an increased focus on community policing and officer visibility to a city in the midst of its most troubling rise in violent crime in over a decade.

Effective Dec. 1, Davis will become the fourth officer to fill the commissioner’s chair in less than three years. In November 2003, then-Commissioner Paul Evans resigned to accept a police standards position within the British government. During the ensuing search for a replacement, Davis was one of two finalists to fill the post, along with Kathleen M. O’Toole, whom Menino selected in February 2004.

After a rocky two-plus years marked by low clearance rates of a rising tide of homicides, O’Toole announced on May 9 that she was leaving to pursue a job as inspector general of the Garda Siochana, Ireland’s 12,000-member national police force. Several days later, Menino named Bureau of Internal Investigations head Albert Goslin superintendent-in-chief while O’Toole readied her departure, eventually appointing him acting commissioner on July 1.

In June, Menino asked David D’Alessandro, the former head of John Hancock, to lead an advisory committee to identify candidates for the position of commissioner. The committee included former Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph Martin, Minister Don Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and Vanessa Calderon-Rosado, chief executive of the South End Hispanic community organization Inquilinos Boriquas en Accion. The committee reviewed dozens of potential candidates, both from within the BPD and across the country, recommending several qualified candidates, whom Menino interviewed.

At a Monday afternoon press conference held at City Hall, the mayor cited the “positive and strong relationships with Lowell’s many diverse communities” Davis fostered while presiding over a 60 percent reduction in violent crime in the Commonwealth’s fourth-largest city, about 25 miles north of Boston on the New Hampshire border.

“I know that when he brings his leadership skills to our police department and to our city, everyone will benefit,” Menino said.

Davis holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice, and received the National Institute of Justice’s prestigious John B. Pickett Fellowship in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. After serving as a patrol officer from 1978-1982, Davis ascended through the ranks of detective, detective sergeant and detective lieutenant in less than a decade, was promoted to captain in 1992 and became superintendent in 1994.

In the 1990s, Davis opened up more than a half dozen neighborhood police substations in Lowell, pushing officers to walk beats and meet regularly with local residents. He also made cleaning up graffiti and razing abandoned buildings a major thrust of neighborhood improvement initiatives.

“Increasing community trust in police has always been my top priority,” Davis said. “Lowell has molded my commitment to neighborhoods and the enormous power of citizens in crime reduction strategies.”

Under Davis, Lowell’s community policing model received national recognition, including a 1999 All American City award from the National Civic League and a U.S. Department of Justice “Police as Problem Solvers” award in 2000. When he takes over the BPD, Davis intends to maintain that focus, in the process returning Boston’s force to its neighborhood roots.

“The department has been recognized internationally as a model for neighborhood policing. This model was built on community partnerships. I will reaffirm that commitment, especially in neighborhoods most impacted by crime,” Davis said.

Minister Don Muhammad said he believes those words have to be followed up with action.

“All of this rests with Mr. Davis,” Muhammad said. “If he comes in and makes the necessary outreach to the community and is absolutely interested in what he says — that he wants to do it with community policing, and with regard to his attitude and his work in prevention — I know one thing: this community will receive him and I will receive him.”

Muhammad went on. “I look forward to working with him, “ he said, “and I look forward to having some success, but no police department can have a measure of success without community input and community cooperation.”

Davis will need to have more than a measure of success to overcome the serious challenges he now inherits. Last year, homicides in Boston reached a 10-year high, and this year’s murder tally is outpacing that high water mark. According to BPD statistics released Oct. 22, there have been 61 homicides this year in the city, up from 57 at the same point in 2005. Forty-five of this year’s homicides are the result of gun violence, up from 38 during the same period last year. And Boston has a whopping 276 non-fatal shootings thus far this year, 25 more than this time last year.

While Davis’s record on violent crime reduction in Lowell is impressive, some have questioned whether implementing his brand of community policing is realistic in Boston, with a department nearly 10 times the size of Lowell’s 244-member force and fewer than 1,400 patrol cops on duty. After Monday’s press conference, Davis told reporters that he and Menino have discussed an increase in the number of BPD officers, but said he has “made a commitment to [Menino] to manage the resources I have.”

Time is of the essence as Davis works to manage those resources and establish trust within the community, which Muhammad said makes the new commissioner’s early decisions critical.

“The thousand-mile journey begins with one step, but that one step must be in the right direction,” said Muhammad. “I believe he needs to reach out to the community and find out who is honestly looking to improve the quality of life in every community in the city, particularly in those where the highest number of part one crimes takes place, which is unfortunately areas like Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain and the South End. … A person going into a hospital, if they’re in serious condition, they get priority attention.”

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)