Menino taps 3 for police review board
Panel to probe citizens' reports of misconduct
Mayor Thomas M. Menino appointed a law school dean, a former law school dean , and a former state Parole Board member yesterday to a three-member civilian board that will review citizen complaints of Boston police misconduct.
The board members, who will serve three-year terms, are John F. O'Brien, one of two deans of the New England School of Law; David Hall, former dean and now a professor at Northeastern University School of Law; and Ruth Suber, a retiree and a former Parole Board member.
The panel will independently review allegations of serious misconduct, such as assault or illegal drug use, that are dismissed by the Boston Police Department's Internal Affairs Division. Board members will also look into less serious cases if a member of the public appeals a decision by Internal Affairs.
Panel members will have the power to ask Internal Affairs investigators to do further work on complaints and to make recommendations to the police commissioner about the disposition of cases, including punishment for officers, but they won't be able to conduct investigations or issue subpoenas. Their work will remain largely confidential, in order to protect those involved, according to the city's corporation counsel. They will make an annual report to the mayor, which will be released to the public.
The board members, none of whom live in Boston, will be paid $100 an hour. It is unclear how many cases they will investigate, but a Globe review found that between January 2002 and September 2005, there were 116 cases in which the Police Department concluded that officers committed serious violations, such as assaulting civilians, lying in police reports, and falsifying evidence. The Internal Affairs Division dismisses about 60 percent of complaints, the Police Department has said.
The panel's authority is a compromise between community activists who wanted it to have greater powers, such as issuing subpoenas, and police unions and others who opposed any review board at all.
The appointments to the Community Ombudsmen Oversight Program were made after nearly two years of research on similar panels in other cities and several months of sifting through applicants in the Boston area to find people with legal expertise and independence from government, police, and the community.
"I'm very pleased with the quality of individuals that have agreed to serve on this board," Menino said in an interview yesterday.
O'Brien has served as a dean of the New England School of Law since 1988 and teaches courses on constitutional law and legal methods.
Suber spent 12 years on the Massachusetts Parole Board and previously reviewed court programs for the Massachusetts Committee on Criminal Justice.
Hall teaches a course called Race and American Law at Northeastern and founded the university's Urban Law and Public Policy Institute to encourage public participation in government.
Members of the legal community characterized Hall and O'Brien as constitutional specialists and innovative thinkers. "Neither one of them I would describe as milquetoast personalities," said former Suffolk District Attorney Ralph C. Martin II, who said he does not know Suber.
All three appointees told the Globe yesterday that during the interview process with the mayor's office, they asked for and received assurances from Menino that he will not try to influence their work before their decisions are made.
"That was important to me going into this," Hall said.
Suber, who has lived in the Boston area for most of her life, said she is delighted by the opportunity to help mediate disputes between Boston police and the public. "It is something that is needed," she said.
O'Brien said he agreed to be a community ombudsman because he wants to lend his expertise to the city and help citizens who believe they have been mistreated. He said public and police trust in the board's integrity will be crucial to its mission.
"I think that's critical, both from the standpoint of the Police Department, as well as anyone else affected," O'Brien said.
The appointments drew praise yesterday from some community leaders, who said they would have preferred Boston residents but are pleased by the appointees' independence. O'Brien lives in Watertown, Hall in Stoughton, and Suber in Lynn.
"I think that you have got a stellar group of individuals who will be objective but not lose sight of the real deal of what's happening at the street level," said Darnell Williams, president and chief executive of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. "At the end of the end, they will make sure that the justice that should be rendered is at least given a proper airing."
City officials said yesterday that they hope the ombudsmen will begin reviewing cases in the next several weeks. They will first undergo training on the inner workings of the Internal Affairs Division, city officials said. The city also plans to hire an administrator to help the panel and act as a liaison with the community.
A renewed push for some form of civilian review began in 2004, after police trying to quell riotous crowds celebrating the Red Sox pennant fired pepper-pellet guns, killing 21-year-old college student Victoria Snelgrove.
Kathleen M. O'Toole, then police commissioner, pledged to create a citizen review board and renewed that pledge after an investigation by an independent panel concluded that police mismanagement and poor judgment led to Snelgrove's death.
The panel also called for a board, saying that Boston has "relatively little external oversight for a department of its size."
"I see [Snelgrove's death] as one of many instances where if we could all replay the clock back, we would prefer those sorts of things do not occur and when they do, that people feel it's going to be handled in a proper and fair manner," Hall said yesterday. "If this review board can contribute to that, then that would be a major contribution to the city and to this society."
The Globe review of Boston police discipline between January 2002 and September 2005 found that the majority of officers found by the department to have engaged in serious misconduct had been allowed to keep their jobs, and three-fourths were punished with suspensions of 45 days or fewer.
The review revealed a system in which Police Department officials often negotiate punishments with officers, who have union and civil service protections. The review also found a system at odds with a national trend toward departments cracking down on problem officers.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. 