Boston Police Commissioner William Evans joined Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio to take listener questions for "Ask the Commissioner."
Selections from the interview include:
On the 7-year-old boy and 20-year-old man who were shot over the weekend:
"The good news here is neither of them sustained life-threatening wounds. I was over at the hospital last night with the young child and his mother. He was smiling, watching the Wii video games, I could barely get him to pay attention to me, but he had a smile from ear to ear...
We should all be troubled when something like this happens. If this doesn't set a wake-up call with everybody going into the warm summer months, I don't know what will...
Anyone out there who has information, shame on you if you don't come forward. When a coward fires a gun and injures a seven year old, we all should be troubled. I think the neighborhood should come forward and give us the individual who did this...We get frustrated because a lot of people don't come forward, I think, whether they're fearful or fearful to talk to the police. We face this every day in a lot of the incidents we have. I think we've made a lot of success in building relationships and building respect, but I think we still have an issue with people not coming forward."
On the White House honoring the Boston Police for community policing:
"We've got a great department. The White House last Monday gave us a shout-out as one of the top police departments in the country. I think it's well-deserved. My officers deserved a ton of credit. That's the kind of work we do day in and day out. The public only hears the bad things about policing but there's so much more we do every day that no one has any clue about the effort we put out there."
On police misconduct in Cleveland and other cities and how it affects policing in Boston:
"I heard the particulars about what happened in Cleveland. If I was a layperson, I would be troubled about what happened...That troubles me because to someone who's out there, it looks excessive. It kills me too because I know we're going to wear that...I want the public to know that's not all of us."
To hear more from Commissioner Evans, tune in to Boston Public Radio above.
