Bratton, Rollins trade jabs over progressive police policies
Top law enforcers Rachael Rollins and Bill Bratton are clashing over how to keep the peace as progressive leaders across the country look to rip up the policing playbook.
Bratton said in Saturday’s Herald that Rollins, the Suffolk district attorney, is “well-intended” but has “lost sight of the fact that very bad, very vicious people deserve to be in jail.”
He cited her support from mega-donor George Soros who is bankrolling left-leaning prosecutors and politicians nationwide. It all comes in the aftermath of George Floyd’s slaying in Minneapolis that exposed corruption in the ranks.
In a blistering response, Rollins said she isn’t turning away from locking up the bad actors in Boston.
“I have always said violent crimes must be prioritized and that perpetrators of violence will be removed from the community when they engage in harmful, serious behavior. And we are doing that,” Rollins said when asked by the Herald about Bratton’s criticism.
Rollins added that during Bratton’s short stint as commissioner in Boston, “the BPD remained under a federal Consent Decree.” The 1974 consent decree forced BPD to diversify. Bratton, who joined the force in 1970, rose to commissioner in the early 1990s for about six months.
“Said differently,” Rollins added of those days, “BPD refused to diversify its police force to reflect the community it serves, so it had to be sued and legally forced to do so. During his time as Commissioner, Boston police arrested Sean Ellis after the murder of Detective (John) Mulligan.”
Rollins said the Ellis case “arguably involved one of the most corrupt and egregiously unconstitutional investigations” the department has ever seen.
“It was conducted and completely infected by multiple conspiring felons on the Boston police force,” Rollins said. “The Superior Court recently agreed and granted Mr. Ellis a new trial stating ‘this whole case is a very sad chapter in the history of our criminal justice system.’ Commissioner Bratton was at the helm for that chapter.”
Rollins added that as DA, she’s elected by the voters in Suffolk County — and she’d be willing to debate Bratton anytime “about any of these issues.”
Bratton on Saturday said of Rollins’ heated response: “I guess I must have struck a nerve.”
Bratton has just come out with a new book titled “The Profession.”
Bratton, who also ran the police departments in New York (twice) and Los Angeles, was born in Dorchester and joined the force here, where he said he learned how good cops get the job done. He said it’s time to “refund the police” — not defund them — before summer violence spirals out of control.
As for Ellis, Suffolk Superior Judge Robert Ullman threw out Ellis’ firearms convictions while deeming “justice was not done.”
Ellis, who spent 22 years of his life behind bars in the 1993 killing of Mulligan, can now get a new trial on two gun charges — a proceeding that probably won’t happen, as Rollins, who agreed to Ellis’ request to toss the convictions, has said she would drop the charges rather than seek the new trial.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3vHQEfg
Post a Comment