Boston police rebut assertions made in senator's column

The Boston Police Department issued a lengthy press release on its website yesterday, rebutting what it called erroneous assertions and factual inaccuracies in a Boston Globe Op-Ed column written by state Senator Dianne Wilkerson.

In the column, the Roxbury Democrat criticized Boston police for failing to solve enough urban homicides and for being structured ''on an antiquated system that may have made sense years ago, but is ineffective in the 21st-century reality of crime and its culture."

She also charged that there are not enough blacks and Hispanics working for the department and that ''the level of mistrust between community and police has never been higher."

In its press release rebuttal, the department charged that Wilkerson made numerous factual errors in the column, including when she wrote that there is ''not one African-American commanding any of Boston's 13 precincts."

Boston has 11 police districts, the press release said. District E-13, which includes Jamaica Plain, is commanded by Captain James Claiborne, who is African-American, the release said.

According to the release, the department received numerous calls from concerned citizens about the Wilkerson column.

''Therefore, in our commitment to provide the community with accurate and updated information on departmental issues, we felt it necessary to provide these clarifications," the release said.

The six-page press release charged that Wilkerson made other incorrect assertions, including:

That Homicide Unit detectives ''don't work after 1 a.m.," when they are on call 24 hours a day.

That the homicide and the antigang violence units of the department are not ''under the same supervision," when both are under the command of the Bureau of Investigative Services under Superintendent Paul Joyce.

That there is a ''troubling" lack of diversity in the department, when the percentage of black and Latino officers is at 35.8 percent, the highest level in the department's 151-year history.

The press release said the department also is ''deeply concerned" about Wilkerson's assertion that the community's trust in the police was at a historic low, calling it ''at best irresponsible."

Wilkerson could not be reached last night for comment.

Globe Editorial Page editor Renee Loth said last night she would examine the complaints about the Wilkerson piece.

''We don't fact-check Op-Eds; we assume that the authors have their facts straight," Loth said.