Boston's nationwide police commissioner search is broadening with a search firm, the strongest indication yet that Mayor Michelle Wu and her five-member search committee intend to look seriously beyond the city's limits for its next reform-friendly police leader.
While Wu's five-member search panel and the soon-to-be-announced firm scour the nation for candidates, city residents are weighing what it would mean to have an outsider shepherding the Boston Police Department through a period of reform.
Those in support of an outsider point to the department's history of resistance and recent scandals. They say it's clear the police should not be responsible for straightening out their own ranks. Meanwhile, those hoping for an insider say it would be difficult for someone to get acclimated to the force's complexities, build morale within the ranks and enact Wu's reform agenda without stumbling over the Boston's idiosyncrasies.
Preston Williams, who is Black and a former Boston police officer, said a local candidate would have a better grasp of the politics and problems within the department.
If Wu taps an outsider, Williams speculated, "they won't last long."
"He's not going to know the system, he's not going to know the city and he's going to come in blind trying to figure out what's going on here," he said.
Williams, who worked under renowned reformer Robert di Grazia, pointed to the resistance di Grazia faced while changing the department in the 1970s.
A 1975 MIT report on the challenges of di Grazia's tenure named the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association his most effective opposition and said some of the tension was owed to the fact the commissioner was an outsider with an "inability to grasp the nuances of BPD politics and diplomacy."
Williams added that the city has long had "good talent" among its officers of color.
"But they never use it," he said, suggesting minority officers are routinely overlooked when it comes to leadership opportunities.
Williams' experience seeing officers sidelined within BPD has been echoed by attendees at recent virtual public meetings of Wu's commissioner search committee. Multiple attendees called out historic disparities in promotional opportunities and disciplinary outcomes need to be addressed as part of the future commissioner's reforms.
Those concerns were repeated by BPD Det. Jeffrey Lopes, president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, who said an overwhelming insider preference has emerged from his conversations about Boson's next commissioner.
"We have people from within that have the ability to lead — and to lead with a reform mindset, with strategic initiatives and a strategic plan that can focus on diversity, equity and inclusion," Lopes said in a recent interview with GBH News.
Officer David Hernandez, vice chair of the Latino emergency responders' social group Llego Boston, agreed that working toward diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the department is also a priority for his group, along with most of the task force recommendations put forward by the 2021 Boston Police Reform Task Force assembled by then-Mayor Marty Walsh.
"We have members that have been fighting for change for a very long time and I think it's important to not overlook those individuals," said Hernandez.
Both Llego Boston and the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers have already met with Wu's search committee.
Asked about an insider's ability to effectively deliver reforms to a department embroiled in multiple scandals in a city that's averse to change, Lopes pointed to new developments like the city's Office of Police Transparency and Accountability and the new oversight of the department handling internal affairs investigations.
"Those are all moving towards a positive direction and making sure that police department is being held accountable," he said.
The new developments were not enough to satisfy former state Rep. Byron Rushing, who said he believes the new commissioner should be an outsider.
"The job is structural, that means that people who work who come up in that system were part of that structural problem,” said Rushing in a recent interview.
“I think that the history of the Boston Police Department has been one of a very, very insular, still predominantly white-influenced police department," he added. "I think we need to find someone that is outside of that history.”
Rushing said he’d be surprised if Wu chose someone from within the department, but he said he'd support that move if the insider showed an inclination toward reform.
“You would have to have an insider that, in part of his or her resume, they’ve criticized the department. Because that would show me the person has been able to demonstrate system change in the police department, even if they tried to do it from the inside,” he said.
"Policing is a culture. Someone ingrained in that culture is not a fresh set of eyes."Shekia Scott
In the Boston Police Department's nearly 170-year history, it has had only two Black police commissioners: William G. Gross, who served a little over two years under Walsh, and Dennis A. White, who is suing the city over his messy and unusual dismissal under former acting Mayor Kim Janey.
Janey intended to promote Superintendent Nora Baston to the role, but backed off making the appointment as White pursued court challenges to his removal. Baston, who oversees the BPD’s bureau of community engagement, became a Boston police officer in 1996.
Baston, White and Gross all rose through the ranks of the Boston Police Department and knew their way around the city.
Joseph Feaster, an attorney and member of the 2021 Boston Police Reform Task Force assembled by former Mayor Walsh, said Boston needs a "manager of the department." He believes the city would benefit from a pick who is either local or familiar with the city even if they don't have a background in law enforcement.
“When we’ve brought folks in from outside who are not familiar with Boston, they haven’t been able to fare well,” Feaster said.
Shekia Scott, a police reform advocate and former staffer to former Councilor Andrea Campbell, agreed with the idea of filling the role with a local person who has strong managerial experience.
"Policing is a culture," she said. "Someone ingrained in that culture is not a fresh set of eyes."
At the same time, Scott said she would prefer with an innate connection with the Boston community.
"There's something about building trust with people that you've seen around in your neighborhoods [and] that you've known to be a part of your city and a part of your upbringing, that fosters a little bit more trust and understanding when you're dealing with them in those high-stress situations," she said.
Scott, who now resides in Pennsylvania, was one of the forces behind bringing the body camera pilot to the BPD in the wake of the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri.
The Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, which has historically brokered collective bargaining terms with the city that other unions follow, fought to prevent the body camera rollout.
Patrick Rose was head of the organization at the time. He remained on the force until his 2018 retirement, keeping his job despite the department determining he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a child in 1995. He is now facing multiple charges of sexual abuse by multiple victims.
"Obscene is the only way to describe it," former Boston City Councilor Larry DiCara said of the Rose situation. "But, that could happen even if you had a real outsider as commissioner."
DiCara endorsed the idea of someone familiar with Boston, though not necessarily an officer, being the next person to lead the force.
"[Former Commissioner] Ed Davis was from Lowell. That doesn't mean he understood everything in Boston, but he started out, at least, on the third chapter," DiCara said, pointing to the peculiarities of Boston's neighborhoods.
"Try to explain to somebody where the line is drawn between Dorchester and Mattapan — good luck," he continued. "So I think someone who's more local, I think, would be helpful, but it need not be somebody from inside the department."
