A new report faults Lowell
Police in the death of a 31-year-old woman being held in custody. The officers
responsible might get "disciplined" -- but Eileen McNamara says they
should be prosecuted. (davidsonscott15/flickr)
Let’s withhold kudos for candor
from the Lowell Police Department until it fires the officers responsible for
the deliberate, negligent treatment of a 31-year-old woman who died in their
custody 13 months ago.
Middlesex County prosecutors
did not even try to indict them for involuntary manslaughter. The least the
City of Lowell can do is fire them.
The department’s just released
internal report of events surrounding the death of Alyssa Brame is blunt in its
assessment of the rank incompetence and callous indifference of seven officers
and civilian employees the night the homeless woman was picked up for
prostitution.
in Massachusetts, history
suggests police officers guilty of misconduct are more likely to face a wrist
slap than a judge or a pink slip.
“Some Lowell police employees
displayed, in my opinion, conduct which could be described as deliberate
indifference for Ms. Brame and that such conduct should shock the conscience of
us all,” Lowell Police Supt. William Taylor wrote to the department last week.
“Throughout this process, we have kept the family of Ms. Brame in our
thoughts.”
Good, but not nearly good
enough.
Determining that Brame was too
drunk to be booked on Jan. 12, 2013, Taylor’s employees ignored their training,
myriad state laws and departmental regulations and failed to summon medical
help. Instead, they dumped the by-then-unconscious woman onto a bench in a
holding cell where she would lay ignored for more than an hour before she died
of acute alcohol poisoning.
Taylor met with Brame’s mother
and apologized. Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan suggested better
police training. City Manager Bernard F. Lynch promised closed-door hearings to
consider disciplinary action. But, in Massachusetts, history suggests police
officers guilty of misconduct are more likely to face a wrist slap than a judge
or a pink slip. TWEET
Ryan, for one, declared Brame’s
death “accidental” in a report that said police conduct did not “rise to the
level of wanton and reckless conduct that would support or warrant criminal
charges.” Even though Lt. Thomas Siopes, the officer in charge that night,
misled investigators about her condition. Even though officers failed to check
on Brame every 30 minutes as legally required. Even though Siopes has said he
sees no reason, even now, to reconsider his decision not to call an ambulance.
“If your child came home drunk
and collapsed in front of you and you went off to watch TV or play video games,
which is what, in effect, these officers did, you would be indicted,” said
Howard Friedman, a Boston civil rights attorney who often represents survivors
in police misconduct cases, including this one. Impressed as he is that Taylor
acknowledged the department’s negligence, Friedman noted that real
accountability in police misconduct cases is harder to come by.
A New Bedford case is typical.
After a man succumbed to a drug overdose while in police custody on July 22,
2010, a review board recommended discipline for five police officers that
ranged from a six-month suspension to termination. Investigators had determined
that officers did nothing while 42-year-old Erik Aguilar overdosed. They did
not intervene until the handcuffed man had been motionless for nine minutes,
inaction that an internal report labeled “an embarrassing disgrace to the New
Bedford Police Department and a case of absolute negligence…”
Those disciplinary cases were
resolved last year. The five officers all received four-day suspensions without
pay.
The outcomes are even more
lopsided in favor of the police when officers are involved in deadly shootings.
Of the 73 people killed by police in Massachusetts since 2002 — 12 of them last
year alone — all but one resulted in no discipline against the officers,
according to an examination of those cases by Jack Sullivan of CommonWealth
magazine.
Quality policing cannot exist
if citizens can’t trust that the police who are sworn to protect them use
excessive force and lie about their actions.
– U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz
District attorneys in
Massachusetts are responsible for investigating police shootings, an inherent
conflict of interest that helps explain why prosecutors invariably deem such
deadly shootings “justified.”
Victims of police misconduct
might need to look beyond the commonwealth’s legal system to find justice. This
week, a jury did convict Shawn Coughlin, 47, of beating a handcuffed drunken driving
suspect and then doctoring his incident reports to cover the crimes he
committed when he was a Plymouth police sergeant.
“Quality policing cannot exist
if citizens can’t trust that the police who are sworn to protect them use
excessive force and lie about their actions. It is very important to our entire
system of justice that individuals who violate that trust are held
accountable,” U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said after the verdict in federal
court.
Had Massachusetts prosecutors
only felt the same, there might have been some justice for Alyssa Brame.
