"State official criticizes police response; Representative tweets about tense traffic stop" July 06, 2011|By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
A state representative got into a heated exchange with Boston police officers Monday after they stopped the car he was riding in for not having a front license plate.
But police say they acted appropriately, and, when they checked the car’s license plate number, they discovered that the car’s owner was wanted for felony assault.
Police said the owner is the driver’s roommate and was not in the vehicle at the time. They did not release the man’s name.
The state representative, Carlos Henriquez, said he does not know the owner and was not aware that the man had an outstanding warrant.
The traffic stop happened shortly after 5 p.m. in front of Henriquez’s house on Judson Street in Roxbury.
Henriquez, a Democrat, said he and two friends had just returned from the Cape Verdean Independence Celebration at Boston City Hall when they were stopped for the missing plate.
He said he questioned why so many officers had to respond to the traffic stop. (He said seven officers in four cars responded; police say it was five officers in three cars.) In response to his complaints, Henriquez said, one officer told him, “What’s it to you?’’ and, when he continued to question the officers, another officer told the driver: “Your buddy has a lot of mouth.’’
Ah, to serve and protect, sig heil.
Henriquez said he deserved a polite answer to his questions.
“There were definitely some personalities clashing,’’ he said.
The officers, he said, eventually explained that because three people were in the car, more than three officers needed to respond. He said his friend was given a warning about the license plate.
Henriquez said he did not identify himself as a state representative, and it was only until later that the police recognized that he was an elected official. “I didn’t try to use my title,’’ he said.
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said yesterday that the officers acted appropriately. He said Henriquez had left the car and was questioning the number of officers on the scene when police told to him to return to the vehicle. Henriquez, however, continued to “jaw back and forth’’ with the police, Davis said.
You can not question authority in Amerika!
“The officers were absolutely correct in the way they handled this situation,’’ Davis said.
Asked whether Henriquez acted inappropriately, Davis said he felt the dustup had been resolved....
The event became public because Henriquez wrote about it on Twitter....
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Yeah, cops always act appropriately:
"Police officer faces discipline for lying; Report says he used unreasonable force" July 08, 2011|By Edward Mason and Tom Mashberg, Globe Correspondents
A Boston police officer at the center of one of the most notorious police brutality cases in city history used unreasonable force while arresting a man in the North End in 2009, then lied about the episode to department investigators, according to an Internal Affairs Division report obtained by the Globe.
Happens all the time.
Also see: Massachusetts Justice: Holding Back
Some would call it tyranny.
As a result, Officer David C. Williams has been placed on paid administrative leave, the Boston Police Department said, and could lose his job under Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis’s nearly 19-month-old policy of dismissing officers who lie in the line of duty, to internal affairs investigators, or in court . Williams is appealing the finding, and a hearing is scheduled for later this month.
Williams was fired from the force in 1999 after being implicated in the racially charged 1995 beating of undercover police officer Michael Cox, then reinstated with nearly $550,000 in back pay after a civil service arbitration in 2005.
Williams’s attorney, Douglas I. Louison, insisted his client told the truth about the 2009 North End arrest.
“He’s absolutely testified honestly and truthfully about the incident that occurred,’’ Louison said. “Any conflicts about the incident were the result of a fast and rapidly evolving incident.’’
Michael P. O’Brien, a 30-year-old Middlesex County corrections officer, filed a civilian complaint against Williams and five other officers who arrested him on Hanover Street on March 16, 2009. O’Brien said that Williams drove his head into the sidewalk and choked him after he began recording Williams and his partner with a cellphone as the two officers responded to a minor traffic accident.
Related: Massachusetts Police Take Bad Picture
Yeah, they don't like being caught acting like Nazis. Sometimes it took even less.
Williams’s partner, Officer Diep Hung Nguyen, was cleared of three charges, including using unnecessary force, as were the four other officers involved in the arrest. Williams was cleared on four charges, including two counts of violating the rule for respectful treatment.
Nguyen’s lawyer, Krisna M. Basu, did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.
Despite the findings against Williams, O’Brien said it was “a sickening feeling’’ to read the Internal Affairs Division report clearing officers of other charges.
“It was like a kick in the gut,’’ he said. “I was expecting to be exonerated. I was expecting them to come out to say: ‘This is a lie. These charges aren’t true. This arrest was false.’ As happy as I am they’re charging him with something, it’s tough. It’s a knock at your credibility as a person.’’
For some reason, even here in the liberal(?) paradise of Massachusetts it is always the authority that is exonerated.
O’Brien, of Methuen, a former National Guardsman, has filed a federal lawsuit against Williams, Nguyen, and the Boston Police Department. He alleges that he suffers from debilitating headaches and dizziness as a result of the arrest, and that his career as a correction officer and his aspirations to join the Army’s Special Forces have been “flipped upside down.’’
And if he wins that it will be TAXPAYERS on the HOOK for the COP'S BAD BEHAVIOR!
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Also see: Police to boost patrols after recent gun violence
