Monday, June 20, 2022

Massachusetts police force has "an extraordinary track record of misconduct"

Boston Globe:
When he first arrived in town in the 1970s, [a] former Stoughton select board member ... recalls, the running joke was that to tell then-police chief ... you were going on vacation was to ensure you returned to a robbed home. ([The chief] would eventually be convicted of knowingly receiving stolen goods.)

In the ‘90s, another Stoughton chief ... was fired after allegations that he used department resources for non-police business and illegally issued a firearms permit to a prominent businessman. A state arbitrator later ruled that only about a third of the charges against [him] were warranted, and that he deserved only a suspension.

By the turn of the century, however, under the leadership of ... a former Stoughton High football player known as a backslapper and politician — those improprieties would come to seem almost quaint.