Michael Dwyer AP
Nearly two years after its executive director was hired, and roughly one year after it began to operate in earnest, Boston’s Office of Police Accountability and Transparency has yet to sustain any civilian complaints against the Boston Police Department or to issue subsequent recommendations for disciplinary action, according to a review of city data by GBH News.
A data dashboard on the office’s website says that in 2022 OPAT, as the office is widely known, received 56 complaints from civilians about the BPD, which employs more than 2,000 officers, and that 21 of those complaints were deemed lacking. But according to a city spokesperson, that doesn’t include more than two dozen complaints that were quickly dismissed upon initial review rather than being sent to OPAT’s Civilian Review Board for deeper consideration. When those are included, the spokesperson said, the tally of complaints received in 2022 rises to 89.
Thirty-five complaints are still pending.
The Boston Police Department, which maintains an alternate mechanism through which civilians can file complaints for review by the BPD, told GBH News it received 126 citizen complaints in 2022 and has sustained two of them.
As a matter of policy, OPAT does not investigate cases that are already being pursued by the BPD.