Bishop could have been tried, DA says

‘‘Even if a grand jury were to hear allegations that this incident involved wanton and reckless conduct on the part of Amy Bishop — the lowest standard for manslaughter in Massachusetts — the statute of limitations has barred indictment on that charge since 1992,’’ Keating said.

The fatal shooting of 18-year-old Seth Bishop in December 1986 has been the subject of new scrutiny since Saturday, one day after police say Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, opened fire on a room full of her colleagues, killing three and critically injuring two. She faces the capital charge of murder and three charges of attempted murder.

That charges were never brought raises questions again about what happened to Braintree police reports that say Bishop went to an autobody shop after the shooting, brandishing the shotgun and demanding a car to escape in.

Former Braintree Police Chief John Polio and former First Assistant Norfolk County District Attorney John Kivlan said they never saw those reports.

‘‘As I previously stated, the Braintree police report that was released today, and previously been reported as missing by the Department, had never been brought to my attention,’’ Kivlan said Tuesday. ‘‘Why the Braintree Police Department did not seek complaints in the Quincy District Court on the above charges is unknown to me.’’

Attempts to reach US Representative Bill Delahunt, who was Norfolk district attorney at the time, were unsuccessful on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a separate incident in Bishop’s past came to light Tuesday.

Peabody police and court records show that Bishop was implicated in an altercation at a pancake house in 2002 that led prosecutors to ask she be forced to take anger management classes.

In March, 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes restaurant in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another customer, according to a police report.

Bishop strode to the customer, identified in the report as Michelle Gjika, demanded the seat and, after a profanity-laced rant, punched her in the head while yelling ‘‘I am Dr. Amy Bishop.’’

Bishop did not plead guilty, according to court documents, but admitted there was enough evidence to prosecute her. In exchange, she received probation.

Court records are unclear on whether a judge granted the prosecutor’s recommendation she take anger management classes.

According to the records released Tuesday, Braintree police arrived shortly after the shooting to find Bishop’s mother Judith with her 18-year-old son Seth lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen.
Judith Bishop told police that the shooting happened after her daughter came downstairs holding her father’s 12-guage pump action shotgun and asked how to unload it. The gun went off accidentally, Judith Bishop told police.

On Saturday, Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier, in a highly unusual press conference, questioned how the department handled the investigation at the time and seemed to suggest that Judith Bishop’s role in town government may have influenced then Police Chief John Polio to release her daughter on the same day as the shooting.

Police waited 11 days to interview the family, including Bishop’s father, Samuel Bishop, and when they did, the mother and daughter gave conflicting accounts of what happened.

Frazier said that Judith Bishop was a member of the town’s personnel board. But Joe Powers, the Braintree town clerk, said that he reviewed town records from 1970 through 1993 and could find no evidence that Bishop had served on the town’s personnel board.

She served as an elected member of town meeting from Precinct 3, from 1980 until 1993, Powers said. She also served briefly on the town’s Arts Lottery Council, in 1985.

Over the weekend, Keating’s office released a six-page 1987 State Police report that called the shooting an accident.

Until Tuesday, it was the only document available on the case, and the lack of information sparked a fury of criticism from legal specialists who said it indicated a superficial investigation. The report did not describe what kind of shotgun was used or the ammunition, nor did it disclose that Bishop fled the house with the gun, which she then pointed at a mechanic at a dealership.

The police reports released Tuesday include that information. Frazier, who did not return calls, included a brief statement in Keating’s release.

‘‘Although the reports and my statements contain minor discrepancies, I am relieved that we now have the incident reports from the responding officers available to us,’’ Frazier stated.

Polio, who described feeling disappointed and blind-sided by Frazier’s press conference, had defended the department’s handling of the case and the decision not to charge Bishop.

But in Tuesday's Globe, Polio said that after reading the State Police report compiled in 1986 and released to the public last weekend, he had questions about the quality of the investigation.

Several legal specialists said Tuesday that the 1987 report failed to address many key questions, including the discrepancies between Amy Bishop and her mother’s statements to police. They also questioned Judith Bishop’s statement that she did not hear anything when her daughter fired a first shot in her bedroom, before firing the second shot that killed her brother.

‘‘Even based on the facts that were there, [prosecutors] should have at a minimum conducted either an inquest or a grand jury proceeding, both of which would have allowed any of the witnesses to be summonsed either before the grand jury or a judge to evaluate their testimony under oath,’’ said Timothy M. Burke, a former Suffolk prosecutor and criminal defense attorney in Needham.

Kivlan, Delahunt’s first assistant who reviewed the police reports into the shooting of Seth Bishop and accepted the police finding of an accident, has acknowledged there were inconsistencies in the witness statements, but he said they did not challenge the overall police finding that it was an accidental discharge.

Kivlan, however, said he did not know at the time that Bishop had fled and pointed a shotgun at someone else, which would have changed his assessment of the case.He said he did not know if Brian Howe, the State Police trooper who wrote the report, knew of Bishop’s actions once she fled.

Howe, who retired as a sergeant in December, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Travis Andersen and Michael Rezendes of the Globe staff contributed to this report.