A Boston police sergeant who allegedly failed to report a traffic stop, followed the vehicle’s female occupants outside his assigned district, and visited the driver’s home will serve four months of a one-year suspension, police said.
Sergeant Joel McCarthy was cited for neglect of duty, conduct unbecoming a Police Department employee, failure to enforce traffic regulations, and violating rules of respectful treatment, according to a settlement reached with the officer after an investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Division. Boston police provided the settlement to the Globe Thursday.
A spokesman said Police Commissioner William B. Evans could not comment on the settlement because it was a personnel issue. The Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, the union representing McCarthy, did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday afternoon.
In a Feb. 8 incident, McCarthy allegedly stopped a vehicle on Washington Street in Roxbury after the driver ran a red light, but he did not cite her or notify police operations staff.
Instead, the settlement states, McCarthy talked with the driver and another woman inside the vehicle, allowed them to leave, followed them for several minutes, and waited in a parking lot while the women entered a store.
After losing sight of the vehicle, he allegedly went to the owner’s home, having found the address in a Criminal Justice Information Services database.
The alleged pursuit kept McCarthy outside his assigned district for about a half-hour, according to the settlement.
In a separate, undated incident cited in the settlement, McCarthy allegedly used inappropriate language and behaved disrespectfully toward a person who entered the Roxbury district station to report a crime.
McCarthy agreed to serve four months of a one-year suspension, with the balance held in abeyance for one year. The suspension was set to begin Thursday.
He will also attend diversity training and be ineligible for promotion to the rank of lieutenant, according to an e-mail from Sergeant Michael P. McCarthy, a police spokesman who is unrelated to Joel McCarthy.
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Be sure to carry your pepper spray, girls:
"State Senate votes to remove FID requirement for pepper spray" by Andy Metzger | State House News Service May 23, 2014
Massachusetts lawmakers in both the House and Senate are now on record as unanimously supporting access to pepper spray without having a firearm identification card.
The Senate on Thursday voted 39 to 0 in favor of Senator Richard Ross’s budget amendment that would allow people to buy and carry the protective spray without the card.
The Wrentham Republican’s amendment outlaws the unlicensed sale of pepper spray, creating a punishment of six months to two years in jail.
Ross’s amendment also prohibits the sale of pepper spray to people under the age of 18 who do not have a card.
The legislation defines self-defense spray as “chemical mace or any device or instrument which contains or emits a liquid, gas, powder, or any other substance designed to incapacitate,” and it requires retailers to be licensed under the state’s ammunition sale law.
The amendment restricts certain people from possessing pepper spray based on their criminal history, mental health, and substance abuse. Criminal convictions, including misdemeanors with a penalty of more than two years in jail, and drug and weapon offenses, would preclude people from possessing pepper spray for a period based on their sentences. People who have been confined to a mental institution would also be restricted, as would people who have been treated for drug addiction or habitual drunkenness.
The House previously passed its own pepper spray amendment, attaching it on April 8 to a measure aimed at combating domestic violence. That amendment was sponsored by Representative Kimberly Ferguson, a Holden Republican, and cleared the House 142 to 0.
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