By Patrick McGroarty
Reporter Staff
Copyright 2006-Reporter Newspapers

A group of ten Boston residents led by Florida Corridor anti-crime activist Barry Mullen has sent Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston City Council a letter demanding that the city significantly increase the number of police officers patrolling Boston's streets.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Dorchester Reporter, cites a 26 year-old city ordinance stating that the number of uniformed Boston Police Officers must remain above 2,500 at all times. Currently, the department has about 2,092 uniformed officers. Even with the additional 140 officers that Menino has pledged to add in the next year, Mullen says the force would remain short of the legally mandated levels.

The letter was co-signed by residents from Dorchester and the South End, including former at-large city council candidate Kevin McCrea and former district three city council candidate Michael Cote.

In the letter, Mullen and the nine co-signors ask the mayor and the council to put more officers into the force by committing a more significant portion of this year's budget to officer training and salaries. They suggest five sources of additional revenue for the city, and threaten to contact the attorney general's office or seek individual legal action if the city fails to respond to their request. Among their suggestions for increasing revenue were increased use of the PILOT program, cutbacks in the amount of city property leased below market rate, and cuts to tax breaks for private companies.

This latest call for more officers comes two days after Menino said in an interview with the Boston Globe that he would find funding to raise the number of officers in the next recruiting class from 70 to 140. Mullen said on Wednesday morning as the letter was scheduled to arrive at city hall that he suspects the mayor's comments were made in anticipation of the group's letter.

"We are hoping the mayor will have a meeting with us to come up with a plan of action," said Mullen. "Short of calling the National Guard, something has to happen here. But frankly, I worry that our letter will just end up in the trash, and then we'll end up in court in the near future."

Mullen said there was a much wider pool of support for the letter from neighborhood leaders as well as lawyers, but that fear of retaliation from city hall kept them silent. He was particularly thankful for the partnership with Kevin McCrea, who has sued the city of Boston on two previous occasions: the first pertaining to alleged violations of open meeting laws, and in an ongoing suit protesting the lack of public meetings about pay raises for city employees.

"I've talked with people involved in Dorchester and here in the South End, and all the cops I've talked to say we need more cops," said McCrea. "Unfortunately our leaders do not seem to be leading on this issue. This isn't about saying they are wrong or bad, but the situation on the street is really serious and we need some help out there."

The mayor's office and several members of the city council have not yet returned phone calls from the Reporter seeking reaction to the letter.