Weirder and weirder. At the Phoenix, David Bernstein suggests that the Boston Police Department is feeding stories to the Herald that Sen. Diane Wilkerson might be indicted, for the purpose of affecting her primary race:
Most of what you see about Wilkerson in the papers is leaked from within the BPD. The Boston Police Patrolmens Association and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society have long despised Wilkerson, in large part because she has periodically advocated on behalf of those claiming to have been wronged by police. This past January, when Wilkerson penned an 850-word op-ed in the Globe titled How to Reform the Boston Police, the BPDs PR department responded with a 1700 word clarification on its blog, and bullied the Globe into fact-checking the op-ed. The only errors the paper found were that Wilkerson gave the wrong number of police districts, and that she claimed none of those districts were led by African-Americans, forgetting that the department had just demoted James Claiborne to be captain of district E13.
I have no idea what the truth is behind the investigation of Wilkersons nephew, Jermaine Berry, and his conviction for voluntary manslaughter. But I can pretty much guarantee you that, contrary to the impression given by the Herald, it had not led and will not lead to an investigation into perjury charges against Wilkerson.
This did not stop candidate Samiyah Diaz, who is running against Wilkerson, from calling for Wilkerson’s immediate resignation from the Senate. Sonia Chang-Diaz is also running for the seat.
I don’t know … it’s hard to see Wilkerson’s motivation to lie, since she’s implicating another one of her nephews in any event. On the other hand, it’s easy to see the reason for the BPD’s hostility towards her. Was it just a political hit?
And come September, will the merits even matter?
Update: Ernie’s got more.
Payback or not, maybe Wilkerson shouldn’t have gone off about the “cokehead cops.” Just saying.