Marty Walsh leaving Boston with a new cloud over his administration

Marty Walsh can’t get out of Dodge fast enough.

After U.S. senators lavished praise on the Boston mayor in Washington, he returned home with an embarrassing problem: what to do with a new police commissioner with a troubled past.

It’s now clear that Walsh rushed through the appointment of Dennis White to be the city’s top cop — failing to do the most basic background checks that would be standard for other job candidates for such a high-profile post.

Walsh plucked White from within the department after Commissioner William Gross suddenly announced his retirement. There was not even the pretense of doing a supposed “nationwide search.”

Major mistake.

Just days after his promotion to commissioner, a 1999 domestic violence allegation against White surfaced in the Boston Globe, and Walsh immediately placed the new commissioner on leave and ordered an outside investigation. No charges were ever filed against White and he denied the allegations in court.

Let’s hope that the “transparency” White and Walsh promised around the police department includes the investigation.

A cop with a cloud over his background will not give Boston residents confidence that he can restore excellence in the city’s force — especially when it comes to the use of force and new rules reform measures.

Despite placing White on leave before going to Washington, and the many missteps Walsh made during his two-term tenure, he wasn’t asked about them on Thursday.

Walsh was on cruise control throughout his two-hour Labor secretary confirmation hearing — getting no questions even from Republicans about the union extortion case against two aides that plagued his administration. The closest he got was a warning from Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who warned Walsh that the nation “can never afford to have a labor secretary that will ever be accused of being in cahoots with union bosses.”

Walsh is expected to be sworn into his new job as Labor secretary within weeks but is now leaving soon-to-be acting Mayor Kim Janey with a huge headache — the investigation into his new police commissioner.

Janey needs to immediately work to ensure the outside investigation is not just a cover up or glosses over the serious allegations against White.

If the investigation uncovers serious questions that prevent White from being commissioner, Janey should order a real search for the next commissioner, including people from outside Boston’s police force.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3pRaBy6