The controversy over a police officer's questioning of an African-American Town Meeting member last May is not likely to go away soon.
On Tuesday, selectmen voted, 3 to 1, not to hear a complaint alleging rude and racially insensitive police behavior in the incident.
But the issue has caused some to question whether the complaint by Arthur Conquest was too narrowly focused on one officer's conduct rather than on wider issues, such as the decision by two town employees to call police after a May 24 zoning decision resulted in a shouting match.
Further, Conquest has indicated in his complaint and subsequent e-mails and comments that he believes employees' and officers' response to the altercation was colored by race.
In an e-mail the day after the selectmen's vote, Conquest said the board was "turning a blind eye" to racial discrimination.
He elaborated on those remarks in a later interview, saying, "They are covering this sick system of racial apartheid. This was tantamount to a whitewash."
In response to similar allegations, Nancy Daly, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, invited Conquest to air his views at the Jan. 8 selectmen's meeting, with Police Chief Daniel O'Leary on hand to respond. She has also proposed that Conquest be part of a future forum on race and racism in Brookline. Conquest has not yet accepted either invitation.
The issue decided Tuesday was whether an officer was guilty of rude behavior or racial bias in his conduct toward Conquest. After a May 24 Zoning Board of Appeals hearing, witnesses said, Conquest and a zoning board member had a loud argument in an upstairs meeting room. About a half-dozen people witnessed it. Two officials called police, and one of them identified only Conquest by name as being involved.
According to a police inquiry, people were leaving the building when police arrived, and Conquest told officers in the lobby that the incident was over and that he was the person they were looking for. He was detained and questioned by a police officer. A few minutes later, another officer told Conquest he would be charged with verbal assault, but this charge was never brought against him.
Gil Hoy, the only selectman to vote Tuesday to hold a hearing, argued that the public deserves a full airing of the evidence, especially because it alleged racism. (Selectwoman Betsy DeWitt recused herself from the vote.)
"In the 12 years I've been a selectman, we haven't held a single hearing" on a complaint of police misbehavior, Hoy said. "I felt this complaint in particular commanded so much public interest that the public deserved an opportunity to hear the evidence firsthand."
But O'Leary said selectmen were right in voting not to hold a hearing. "The allegation was that a police officer had done something wrong," he said. "We did a well-thought-out investigation and found that the officer did not do something wrong."
The internal police investigation into the incident was completed Oct. 11 and presented publicly Tuesday. It looked into two allegations - rudeness/discourtesy and racial profiling/discrimination/bias. It found the latter unfounded, and that there was no evidence for a conclusion on the rudeness question.
"We could have looked at the evidence ourselves and determined whether there was a reason to go forward," said Hoy.
Daly said she felt the officer responded as he was trained to do, and that voting to hear the case would have "scapegoated" a single officer. "Frankly, I feel it's unfortunate that the police were called into this situation," she said. "It may not have been appropriate."
John Bassett, a Town Meeting member who was present at Tuesday's vote but not at the original incident, said Conquest's complaint should have been broader.
"It seems to me that a productive hearing would have looked at the whole incident and possibly come up with guidelines for better handling future situations," he said. "The question that hasn't been looked at is the behavior of the senior town employees who called the police. I don't think they would have called the police if it was me yelling after the hearing."
Several witnesses quoted in the police investigation questioned the propriety of the officer's May 24 interrogation, and said that as they watched it, they felt frightened for Conquest.
Virginia LaPlante, a Town Meeting member who was present at the May hearing, told the police investigator: "I don't think my white-haired, white husband would be treated that way."
The board's decision means Conquest cannot seek further action from it. In earlier e-mails, he suggested he had consulted an attorney and might take the issue to another forum. But as of Wednesday he had not reached a decision.
"I have to seriously think about what I want to do next," he said. "They didn't take a statement from me on the night of the incident, yet they charged me with assault, and they wouldn't allow me to address the board last night."
Brookline's Police Department was ahead of state requirements in compiling data on racial profiling in 1997 and providing training to address it. This was recognized this summer when the department was named winner of a civil rights award from the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
