Based on the reports available, it looks like the Boston Police missed a big opportunity last year to at least arrest and question Edwin Alemany, the man in custody for the brutal kidnapping and murder of Amy Lord. Last fall, a BPD detective failed to follow-up on a sexual assault in which the survivor passed out, but not before she grabbed the perp’s wallet. That wallet contained Edwin Alemany’s driver’s license.*
Now, the detective in charge of that sexual assault case, Jerome Hall-Brewster, has been demoted to patrol officer. It was some combination of his bumbling of the sexual assault case and past transgressions, including some incident in 2011 and not reporting the use of nonlethal force in 2001.
The Globe reporting fails to mention, however, that Hall-Brewster had another run-in with notoriety. He was involved in one of the more high-profile and embarrassing cases for the Boston Police Department in recent years as one of the defendants in the Glik case. That case involved three BPD officers, including Hall-Brewster, arresting a man for wiretapping, disturbing the peace, and aiding in the escape of a prisoner because he videotaped the arrest of another man and what appeared to be the use of excessive force. Luckily, the First Circuit Court of Appeals found that the charges against Glik violated the First and Fourth Amendments.
That case was truly a stain on the Boston Police Department. That case also cost the city $170,000 in a settlement. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of settlement the city pays for suits from Amy Lord’s family (not sure of the legal theory there, but I suspect they are coming).
All of this raises on important question, though – what does a police officer have to do to cost them their badge?
*I understand that this would have been a tough case to bring to trial because the survivor could not identify the perpetrator. But the seriousness of the crime and the evidence they had was enough to expand the investigation and make an arrest. It’s sad to see the police and prosecutors so regularly overaggressive on other cases, especially drug cases, but then fail to pursue a sexual assault.
“The Fence” by Lehr is a good read on the malpractice of police work in Boston. More than police work, the BPD, as most police departments, is a bureaucracy. To even give a negative review a manager must let other work go to create the paperwork trail. The manager becomes the target of the Union, the police uncle that got the job for the incompetent, and the ire of the middle manager that is forced into some action. What happens is that the manager becomes dysfunctional. Dismissal is just too much for most supervisors, unless it comes from the top, then it will come with instruction.
I don’t see things changing anytime soon.
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.” –Thomas Sowell
Which could probably be construed as a good thing, a pro-labor thing, if any other jobs came anywhere close to that level of un-disciplinability, added to the fact that some people just really need to get suspended or fired. I’ve been thinking about this lately- is it healthy? Is there something peculiar to the hjob of the police that makes it a socially beneficial thing for them to be virtually impossible to fire?
Police unions don’t seem to be the targets of conservatives like teachers unions. You hear all the time conservatives screaming about how teachers can’t be fired because the unions are too strong. There may be some truth to that, but it is completely overstated by the right. I wish these people would send some of their rage at this other union, which protects straight-up dangerous people. Also, police are better paid than teachers, too.
Anyone who relies solely on police protection, or a politician to care for their needs, will ultimately be disappointed. There are hundreds of thousands of women, usually under 30, who are assaulted in the U.S. I would advise many women to look into obtaining a conceal-carry firearm permit. I already wrote about this in a previous diary.