Former Boston police union head Patrick Rose pleads guilty to abuse charges
Records show that despite the determination Rose probably broke the law, police officials never recommended that he be fired.
Patrick M. Rose Sr., the onetime president of the city’s powerful patrolmen’s union, pleaded guilty Monday to molesting six children over decades in a case that exposed deep institutional failings within the Boston Police Department.
Rose had been allowed to keep his badge for 20 years after top police officials determined he more than likely sexually abused a child in 1995. Despite that finding, Rose remained on patrol in Dorchester, where he interacted with children and sexual assault victims and eventually ascended to the presidency of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. The revelation, published in a Globe investigation in April 2021, underscored the secrecy of the nation’s oldest police department, which has a history of protecting officers accused of misconduct.
In Suffolk Superior Court, Rose pleaded guilty to many of the allegations against him. Rose had been charged with 33 counts of sexual abuse of six children ranging in age from 7 to 16 and had maintained his innocence.
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