Janey orders a review of BPD’s Internal Affairs process

Boston Mayor Kim Janey will task the incoming director of the city’s new Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) with a comprehensive review of how the Boston Police Department handles internal affairs, she said last Thursday.

When she tapped Stephanie Everett last week to lead OPAT›s launch, Janey instructed the attorney to examine the case of Patrick Rose, who faced allegations of sexual assault on a child but remained on the force for two decades longer and rose to lead the Boston Police Patrolmen›s Association.

Two days after her administration released redacted internal affairs files concerning Rose on April 20, Janey expanded the scope of Everett’s mission, calling on her to deliver a plan for “review and reform” of BPD’s internal affairs process within the first 45 days of Everett’s tenure.

The internal affairs files show that then-Boston Police Commissioner Paul Evans was informed in 1996 that investigators believed Rose had sexually abused a child, but allowed Rose to return to patrol under pressure from the union. As the Boston Globe reported, Rose would later be accused of abusing five more children before his arrest last year.

“There is nothing more important than ensuring that something like this never happens again,” Janey said at a press conference. “The fact that a Boston police officer could be accused of sexually abusing a child, that that accusation would be sustained by the Boston Police Department, that that officer would not be terminated, that that officer would be accused of abusing other children and still stay on the force for another 20 years and rise through the ranks and become the president of the union is indefensible, and that would not happen under my watch.”

[In a statement issued last week, Evans and former BPD chief of internal investigations Ann Marie Doherty argued that the additional files will show that the Boston Police Department did everything it could to hold Rose accountable for child abuse allegations in the 1990s, including an internal affairs investigation that found Rose likely abused a 12-year-old.

“We believed at the time, and we still believe, that everything that could be done by the Boston Police Department was done in this matter to hold Rose accountable,” the statement said.


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