Michael Cox, a former Boston police officer who was beaten by colleagues who mistook him for a suspect in a fatal shooting will be Boston’s next police commissioner
Read more- https://t.co/Fergy9Iut7 pic.twitter.com/uq6hYtMIVs
— BreezyScroll (@BreezyScroll) July 13, 2022
Cox, 57, a Roxbury native, served in multiple roles with the Boston Police Department before becoming the police chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2019. He is expected to take over in Boston next month.
According to Cox, his appointment is an “emotional moment” for him. He committed to working to diversify the police force, which critics have long claimed does not adequately reflect the city it serves, and to ensure that officers feel encouraged to perform their duties to safeguard the community.
“I think this is a very exciting time. I think the officers need someone to support them,” Cox told reporters Wednesday. “And I’m going to their biggest cheerleader.”..
Welcoming Chief Michael Cox back home to Boston as our next @BostonPolice Commissioner! pic.twitter.com/RU3CohT6Qf
— Mayor Michelle Wu ?? (@MayorWu) July 13, 2022
New: Michael Cox, who 30 years ago was beaten by his fellow Boston Police officers while working undercover in the department’s gang unit, will return to Boston to lead the department as commissioner. https://t.co/yKPRBqjUw8
— Cynthia Needham (@CynthiaNeedham) July 13, 2022
Michael Cox, then a young member of the Boston police gang unit, was beaten unconscious in 1995 by fellow officers who mistook him for a murder suspect. For years, the department tried to cover it up, with nearly two dozen officers denying they saw the attack at all.
On Wednesday, Cox was named Boston’s next police commissioner, a triumphant return that will call on him to transform the department that wronged him decades ago.
Cox, 57, worked for the Boston police for 30 years before becoming chief of the Ann Arbor Police Department in Michigan in 2019 and arrives back at a pivotal moment for the department, which faces widespread calls for reform from community leaders, activists, and Mayor Michelle Wu herself. He will be the department’s third Black commissioner when he begins on Aug. 15, and will immediately confront the challenge of instituting reforms while maintaining the good will of a 1,600-strong force known for resisting change…
Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, also celebrated Cox’s return, saying he “has a working understanding and intimate knowledge of the changes needed to better the BPD.”
Such support from law enforcement marks a striking reversal from what happened decades ago after the mistaken police attacks on Cox. Back then, the union sided with the officers who had beaten him as department officials worked to cover up the incident, and the city dragged its feet on an apology while fighting tooth and nail for a low settlement.
Stephen A. Roach, one of the Boston attorneys who represented Cox during his years of litigation against the city, the department, and the officers who beat him, said the city had made a “very, very intelligent decision” in tapping Cox.
“My feeling is if this hadn’t happened to him originally, he probably would have been a commissioner before this,” he said. During the many years of litigation, he learned that Cox was widely respected inside the department, and even by some of the people he arrested. The man Cox was chasing when he was attacked, Robert Brown, was acquitted of charges connected to the Roxbury murder and testified on Cox’s behalf during the federal civil rights trial, Roach said…
“The men and women of the Boston Police Department will step up, both civilian and sworn, to make sure that we serve the public well in this city,” [Cox] said. “[I’m] going to support you to death . . . but the reality is we are going to do some things in a different way.”
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Poetry
MisterDancer
That sounds like Justice. Thanks for sharing it!
NobodySpecial
Good luck. I bet he’ll need it.
OzarkHillbilly
Color me skeptical.
Villago Delenda Est
@NobodySpecial:
I think he will. Despite the public applause, a lot of Boston Cops are utterly corrupt and racist. Like cops in nearly every police department in the US.
Chief Oshkosh
@OzarkHillbilly: I see what you did there.
geg6
I love this so much.
Baud
Rizzoli & Isles made the Boston PD seem so sweet and cuddly.
Leto
Lol, wut? You mean the entire Republican sphere, including a good number of Dems, all the police unions, and all the tv shows/media from the past almost 30 years isn’t enough? Not to mention all the insane amount of funding that goes to them, as well as all the military hardware they could use, isn’t enough? The absolute immunity from any type of fucking prosecution/reform isn’t enough?
Ok…
p.a.
Institutional inertia is a thing, even without factoring in bad actors. I wish him well.
geg6
@Leto:
He’s just saying what he has to say to assuage their delicate fee fees. He knows who and what they are.
Ohio Mom
I hope Anne Laurie will periodically update us on the new Commissioner’s progress. He certainly has an interesting story, but every police chief/commissioner promises change. It’s hard to deliver.
In the meantime I will enjoy the irony and karma.
Joe Falco
@Baud:
The cop shows always do a good job of that.
Baud
@Joe Falco:
On one hand, the whitewashing sucks. On the other, we’d probably be worse off if Hollywood didn’t set ideals for cop behavior.
eclare
@Joe Falco: Check out The Wire. None of those cops were cuddly. Well, maybe Bunny…
Another Scott
@Joe Falco: My local NPR station (WAMU) plays old timey radio shows on Sunday evenings, Dragnet being one of the staples. It’s funny that all the criminals out in LA back then were white people, and the officers were always kind and respectful and “just the facts, mam”…
:-/
A guy I worked with for 10+ years occasionally told stories about the kind and respectful cops out there beating and hassling people for no reason when he was living out there in the ’60s. It’s a problem; the War on Crack and the aftermath of 9/11 made it much, much worse in too many places.
:-/
Good luck to Cox, but he won’t be able to do much of anything by himself. He needs the city, the administration, and the department to be on-board with progress. Here’s hoping that he gets that help.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@geg6:
Don’t disagree. I think it’s tough for reformers in public service. On one hand, you’re trying to serve the public. On the other, you’re a boss and no one likes a rotten boss. So it’s a balancing act which not many people can do well.
Mike in NC
I grew up in Roxbury and that was where I learned to hate the police.
Baud
Apropos, via Reddit.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: He will certainly need to watch his back. I expect he knows the challenge. Best wishes to him.
Immanentize
@Mike in NC:
I was a public defender in Roxbury, and similar lessons learned. Although Miami taught me more about police corruption and violence.
Immanentize
@Paul in KY: I’ve been wondering if any of the guys who beat him, or lied about it, are still on the force.
Urza
@Baud: Shocker Liz Cheney the hero is ok with protecting neo-nazis. And the handful of others that actually had some modicum of self respect to vote for impeachment are ok with them to. Its almost like thats the base of the Republican party and they wouldn’t want to offend their own voters.
James E Powell
@eclare:
Beadie Russell
cain
@Baud: Just goes to show that even Cheney and Kitzinger and the rest of the Dems are not always going to see eye to eye. Jan6 and everything has a lot to do with white supremacy. Specifically white males.
Baud
@Urza:
Their voters want neo-Nazis on that wall. They need neo-Nazis on that wall.
Old Man Shadow
Commissioner Cox: Okay, first reform being: We do not beat random Black men unconscious even if we think they’re guilty of something.
Police Union: WHY EVEN BE A COP THEN?
Joe Falco
@Baud: Republicans are upset it’ll put a dent in future insurrection plans.
Baud
@cain:
Yes. I appreciate their standing up against the insurrection. But that doesn’t change the fact that the best Republican is still far worse than the worst Democrat. (At least at the federal level.)
cain
Why the fuck is ‘epps’ trending on twitter and all this new conspiracy theory about him being an FBI agent – man, the right wingers will try anything. Then again, NYT – fuck them.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I wondered about that too, and I concluded that many of them surely are.
cain
@Baud: Absolutely – and I do appreciate it because otherwise we get nothing. They seem to have a narrow goal of removing Trump and we have to see it with that lens.
WaterGirl
@Old Man Shadow:
I just wanted to see that again.
Ladyraxterinok
@Another Scott:
It’s really striking indeed that in the older cop shows like dragnet there are zero blacks even zero blacks as crooks
And all the cops wear suits and ties and hats
danielx
@Baud:
Because FSM forbid we should keep white supremacist and neoNazis from belonging to the armed forces.
The Moar You Know
@geg6: absolutely. He knows damn well if he ever shows up in person to a situation odds are pretty good someone will “accidentally” mistake him for a bad guy and kill him. I don’t envy him the job, but will say he’s probably pretty fucking motivated to make it work.
Urza
@danielx: If they didn’t steal their military grade weapons and get their military training here they’d just get it somewhere else right.
eclare
@James E Powell: True. I wasn’t thinking of port police.
Paul in KY
@Immanentize: That would be very interesting. If so, would like to be there when they run into each other.
Paul in KY
@Ladyraxterinok: that’s probably because all the ‘crooks’ were paid actors and thus the whites got the jobs. Same as it ever was….
FlyingToaster
@OzarkHillbilly: Boston’s earned your skepticism.
I don’t live there (currently just across the river in Watertown, soon to be further up the hill in Belmont), but in some of the ‘burbs, we’ve started to see changes for the better. As the old guard retire, the new officers are both more diverse and more cognizant of the bullshit that’s been going on. Mind you, they’re still whiter than the towns they police, but they’re no longer “only Irish, Italian, and Greek need apply*”. My block has one Hispanic and one Asian cop, who wouldn’t have been hired before the old chief let go of the “hiring” decisions.
Cox is a huge step in the right direction, kudos to Mayor Wu. Now it’ll be up to the new Governor (Healey, please) to deal with the Staties.
* [as one of the Somerville cops told me 20+ years ago. When half of the town was either Asian, Brazilian, or Carribbean immigrants. FFS.]
Villago Delenda Est
@Old Man Shadow:
What’s sad is this isn’t a joke. Just ask George Floyd. Oh, wait. You can’t ask him.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: I can tell you just from working in the city sewer department that it’s hard to get people to change. We recently made a change to how we clean the sewer; instead of everyone using our database to look up the information they need, there’s this insane system of e-mailing spreadsheets and putting information in Teams because they boss knows how to look at a spreadsheet but doesn’t know how to look in our database! Someone tried to explain their “system” to me, and I said “That sounds crazy it makes my head hurt”. So yeah, it’s hard to make changes.