[Source via Boston Globe By Lea Skene]
By 2022, two years after a nationwide reckoning in response to George Floyd’s murder,Boston finally seemed ready for substantive police reform.
The city had a fledgling civilian oversight agency, a progressive mayor who campaigned on a promise of meaningful change, and a new police commissioner well positioned to carry it out.
In an interview, Commissioner Michael Cox said the department has been changing for the better. But in recent months, an unwelcome spotlight has landed on his contentious relationship with the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, also known as OPAT. It’s a messy standoff that leaves some people scratching their heads, wondering what happened to the earlier sense of promise.
“I expected a different level of compassion and engagement,” said Jamarhl Crawford, a community activist who served on the city’s police reform task force in 2020. “That’s what’s confusing.”
Even the department’s biggest critics acknowledge that Boston is among the safest major cities in the nation, an accomplishment that points to effective policing. Yet the agency has also racked up scandals in recent years, from overtime fraud to other high-profile misconduct cases. And some argue that more action is needed to break down the so-called blue wall of silence.
Now, this spat with OPAT threatens to derail more nuanced conversations about how Boston police can better serve their city, reform advocates say.
Cox argues the bigger picture should take precedence. During a rare sit-down with the Globe last week, he insisted reform is taking place, calling it a steady drumbeat of “incremental change for the better.”
Cox described improvements in policies, training, and community trust, things that he said improve the culture of policing even if they’re not flashy or headline-grabbing. He’s pushing to get the department nationally accredited, a process that involves making sure its policies reflect industry best practices.
Above all, he said he’s committed to putting mechanisms in place to prevent the kinds of abuse he experienced firsthand. Decades ago, he endured a brutal beating from fellow Boston police officers who mistook him for a suspect.
“I’ve probably seen some of the worst things you can see in policing, and I understand that. I’m cognizant it exists,” Cox said. “You don’t need a lot of fanfare. . . but you do need commitment and intention every day to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
It’s not his leadership style to loudly demand credit or publicly spar with his detractors, Cox said. He has a reputation for avoiding the spotlight and the media, even as a public figure. In January, his absence at a community forum caused some frustration. Crawford, who organized the event,said he contacted the department multiple times to invite the commissioner.
Cox said he focuses on fostering enduring relationships with residents, people he meets at neighborhood gatherings and other events. He touted a departmentwide recommitment to community policing that includes “Community CompStat” meetings, where officers publicly discuss crime trends and solicit feedback from residents.
Crime Stoppers tips have increased significantly since then, a sign of growing public trust, Cox said.
When it comes to officer discipline, he said, he insists on carefully reviewing each case.
“I’m responsible for all the people that work here,” he said. “I can never give up my responsibility.”
However, that approach has contributed to the growing friction with OPAT. In September, OPAT officials sent a letter accusing the department of stonewalling their effortsto independently review police conduct. They said officers weren’t showing up for interviews and the commissioner was ignoring some of their findings.
In a response letter, Cox promised better collaboration with the office and asked OPAT officials to share their investigative materials. But he also asserted that any disciplinary decisions must be based on the findings of the department’s internal affairs investigators, not an outside agency.
Records show Cox routinely directs his internal affairs division to conduct its own investigations after OPAT determinespolicy violations have taken place.
In one case, OPAT’s civilian review board recommended terminating an officer who had tackled and punched a teenager mistaken for a gang member, according to their findings. After reviewing a subsequent internal affairs investigation, Cox instead issued the officer a written reprimand for violating a body-camera policy.
OPAT’s work has been hampered to the point of rendering it largely ineffective, said Joshua Dankoff, who serves on the group’s civilian review board. OPAT is David to the Police Department’s Goliath, he said, and elected officials should step in and fixthe power imbalance.
“Either allow the office to function and be meaningful,” Dankoff said, “or just pack it up.”
Public debate around the issue spurred three city councilors to request a hearing on whether OPAT needs to be strengthened.
“It’s a good time now to take a step back, look at the framework we’ve set up, and see if it’s working,” said Councilor Ben Weber. “See if there’s anything we can do that would make it more effective.”
OPAT, which initially struggled to get off the ground amid staffing and organizational problems, finally used its subpoena power for the first time last month. But only threeof thenine subpoenaed Police Department employees showed up. It remains to be seen how OPAT will respond.
Mayor Michelle Wu, who chose Cox to lead the department, has pledged support for OPAT since her time on the City Council; she voted for its creation. But apart from calling both agencies “key parts in the city’s public safety infrastructure,” she has taken a hands-off approach to the recent conflict.
Meanwhile, the statewide Peace Officer Standards and Training commission, which certifies Massachusetts law enforcement officers, has chastised the Boston Police Department for long delays in submitting requiredinformation on discipline and other matters.
“They are the most delinquent of any other agency” in the state, executive director Enrique Zuniga said in a recent interview.
Zuniga said the Police Department takes the longest to complete internal affairs investigations and currently has the most pending.
The POST commission generally imposes a 90-day deadline on internal investigations. For Boston police, the average investigation lasts 441 days, plus another 60 days or sobefore a discipline decision is disclosed, according to POST officials. Although some particularly drawn-out cases skew the numbers slightly, officials said, the agency is stilla significant outlier.
“If I was the commissioner, I’d be concerned about these metrics,” Zuniga said.
Cox acknowledged the delays, which he attributed to a massive backlog he inherited. He said they’re working through open cases as quickly as possible without compromising the integrity of the investigations.
Cox publicly clashed with the POST commission in 2024 over the demotion of Eddy Chrispin, who was removed from the department’s command staff after being appointed a POST commissioner. Chrispin said Cox forced him to choose between the roles, and Zuniga issued a statement at the time, calling on Cox to reconsider.
Chrispin later sued the department alleging the demotion violated his constitutional rights, and the case is ongoing. Department leaders have said that sometimes changes are made “to strengthen the command staff’s work . . . and to promote cohesion of the team.”
The push for greater accountability has waned since he served on Boston’s policereform task force in 2020, said Chrispin, a 27-year department veteran and past president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers.
“We call ourselves a progressive city. We have leaders who say all the right things,” he said. “If we can’t get it right, what message does that send?”
A whistle-blower lawsuit filed in January also accused Cox of silencing a high-ranking officer who raised concerns about possible corruption and criminal activity in the department’s paid detail and overtime programs. Deputy Superintendent Marcus Eddings alleges he was demoted in retaliation. A Boston police spokesperson denied the accusation of retaliation and said the department investigates all allegations of misconduct.
Rickey “Fu-Quan” McGee was released from prison last year after prosecutors acknowledged missteps by Boston police in a 1997 murder case. McGee said he’s disappointed but not surprised about the slow pace of reform in Boston. He was optimistic when Cox became commissioner, believing his “lived experience” made him “someone who was there to upend the system.”
“That obviously didn’t happen,” McGee said.
It’s a sense of resignation shared by people across the country who feel that police reform has fallen by the wayside in recent years. But even as the movement has met resistance, the nationwide trend is positive, said Christine Cole, a Boston public safety consultant.
“I think we are still on a trajectory of improving policing, and part of that means getting community input,” she said. “Are there ways that civilian oversight and police leadership can work together? Are there ways to deepen understanding and find the right balance? Absolutely yes.”
But progress like that requires a shared commitment, she added, and a certain level of collaboration.