Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Cambridge Police Embrace Trump

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What’s going on in this encounter? I’ll make no excuses for the attitudes or actions of any of the civilians, but I cannot tolerate that the one person in this video who is paid by us to act like an adult failed miserably at his job.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2016/11/22/cambridge-police-defend-sergeant-actions-video-recorded-encounter/fPyaJrNPuEOzfZOpEizjvK/story.html

I’m posting this in the hopes that there is an ACLU or NLG lawyer on this board.

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  1. Here is a link to the piece cited above.

    It is instructive to watch the entire video, and after doing so read the following statement published in the story:

    A Cambridge police sergeant acted appropriately during a chaotic October incident in which he detained a Dorchester man for allegedly bumping into him on the street, an internal review found.
    …
    Hodge faces assault and battery and disorderly conduct charges, and police on Tuesday disputed his claim that he was on the phone; the two women, whose names have not been released, face charges including assault and battery on a police officer and interfering with a police officer. The possible charges are pending, following a clerk’s hearing last week.

    In its statement on Tuesday, Cambridge police said a 25-year-old Somerville woman is facing a possible assault charge because she “allegedly grabbed the right arm of Sergeant Ahern multiple times.” In the video, the woman appears to reach toward Ahern, though the angle and darkness obscure how much contact occurred.

    The other woman, a 52-year-old from Cambridge who recorded most of the video, is accused of repeatedly encroaching on the personal space of Ahern, who at one point appears to knock the phone from her hand when she gets close to him. Recording police stops is legal; Ahern’s report alleges the woman repeatedly came too close to him, interfering with his work.

    Just another example of a white racist cop harassing a black kid, with most of the exchange captured on video. Not surprisingly, the result is the cop being exonerated, the kid facing charges, and the woman who videotaped the encountered facing charges.

    This behavior by police is disgusting. The defense of Detective Sergeant Thomas Ahern is disgusting.

  2. While disgusting, I don’t see that this encounter has anything to do with Donald Trump.

    Cambridge cops have been treating blacks like this for the forty-plus years I’ve lived in Massachusetts. They were doing this before Donald Trump, and they will keep doing this after Donald Trump so long as we continue to enable this behavior by exonerating its perpetrators.

    It has to stop.

  3. …and I usually am quick to think there must be another side to the story. In this case just reading the statement Tom quoted makes me wonder why the cop didn’t just walk away. People bump into each other all the time, especially if one is distracted by a phone or something. Nothing a quick, “ooh, sorry about that,” could not have resolved. Sargeant Ahern must have woken up on the wrong side of bed that morning.

    • The victim said repeated that it was Mr. Ahern who aggressively walked into him. The victim said several times during the encounter that Mr. Ahern smelled of alcohol.

      I strongly suspect that alcohol had much more influence on Mr. Ahern than the side of the bed he chose that morning.

      • In that case, Sergeant Ahern needs a fitness review at very least. Surely, nobody can defend being drunk while on duty as a cop, right?

        • A said truth is that alcohol is nearly always involved in altercations like this.

          I note, further, that Mr. Ahern was not in uniform and repeatedly refused to show his badge or otherwise identify himself.

          • Sorry if I can’t keep up with the details. The linked article is behind a paywall for me. If he was drunk, not in uniform, and did not identify himself it’s starting to sound like maybe he wasn’t on the job at all. As such, we should ignore what he does for a living and he should just be arrested for assault as either of us would be. If it happened in Cambridge and his own department won’t do it, maybe the Middlesex Sheriff or the State Police should.

              • That is a good link but the story lacks details on
                1) how much time lapsed between the encounter and when the breathalyzer was administered to Ahern; and
                2) whether there was any alcohol detected on Ahern’s breath. There is a zero tolerance policy for on-duty cops and the public deserves to know the result by the numbers, not just that he took a test.

                Maybe Ahern was righteous in his assault or maybe he is just another fuck-up Cambridge cop whose behavior should be removed from the job. I have a family member who was a LEO and had to supervise the Cantab cops during the anti -Viet war protests and he told me stories that might make you hate cops. I was once an employee of an NGO that sought a civilian police review board in Cambridge and I was threatened a few times with a beat down by out of uniform assholes

  4. The officer who in plain clothes who chased a man down the street, put his knee on his back, and then frog marched him back to his car in retaliation for a smudge left on his car window…
    …was exonerated. Commissioner Evans said that the civilian wasn’t injured and that the officer didn’t slam the civilian’s head on the pavement, so there was no case.

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