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Off-duty Boston cop charged with beating Uber driver, stealing his car
By adamg on Sun, 01/04/2015 - 10:10pm
Boston Police report a 16-year officer is facing assault and battery charges - after he allegedly beat an Uber driver he accused of taking him to the wrong address and then drove off in the man's car.
The statement confirms a report by the Weekly Dig on the incident, although it does not reference the part of the Dig account in which Michael Doherty, 40, of South Boston, also allegedly shouted racial epithets at both the driver, who is Hispanic, and a black man who stopped to help him.
According to police:
At about 2:45am, on Sunday, January 4, 2015, officers from District C-6 (South Boston) responded to a call for a ride share driver stating that he had been assaulted by a passenger in the area of E. 1st Street and Farragut Road in South Boston. On arrival, officers spoke to the victim, an Uber driver, who stated that he was in the process of dropping a passenger off in the area of E. 2nd Street in South Boston when the passenger began yelling at him and accusing him of trying to drop him off at the wrong location. Victim further states that the suspect physically assaulted him when he stopped his vehicle in the area of E. 2nd and M Streets. In an effort to escape the suspect, the victim states that he exited his vehicle. Once outside the vehicle, the victim states that he watched as the suspect got into the front seat of his car and drove off. The victim, who was aided by a passing motorist, followed the victim to E. 1st Street and Farragut Road where the suspect stopped and exited the victim’s car. The suspect fled the area before police arrived. The suspect was later identified, located and placed under arrest.
In addition to charging Doherty, BPD placed him on administrative leave.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
"Oh, hey, my profession is all over the news for misdeeds"
"And two people who had nothing to do with any of it got shot dead two weeks ago, so I'll just beat this guy and steal his car, because that will totally restore public confidence that police officers will serve and protect their communities." Boy, they'll let anybody play cops and robbers, huh?
the bar needs to be raised
All the D+ students that were meatheads in my high school (and yours too) became cops. It's time to raise the bar on who can become a police officer.
...and enough with the affirmative action. you know, the 'hey my daddy's a cop and he gave me all the answers to the police exam.'
Raise the bar, give all great cops raises and fire the rest.
To raise the bar, you need to change the system
Some police departments -- I don't know how many -- reject applicants who score too high on intelligence tests. Courts have ruled that this is legal.
Would Barney Miller prefer a squad made up entirely of Wojahowiczes, or would he rather have all Deitrichs?
That's a big myth.....
About scoring too high on an intelligence test. During an interview if you show that you are a wierdo MIT need with no social skills but the intelligence to build a rocket to go to the moon, you will get passed over.
Not exactly a myth
It might not happen often or it might not happen at all anymore, but it did happen enough that it went to court and was ruled to be legal:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs-connecticut...
You have to read the entire decision
There were more factors than just the test.
Unless the article is wrong...
... the judge explicitly ruled that it was legal to disqualify _everyone_ who scored "too high". If you want to convince us that the court did not say this, you will have to do a bit better....
The "too high" score was, in fact....
... the one and only decisive issue in the apeellate decision.
http://www.aele.org/apa/jordan-newlondon.html
The court ruled that it didn't even matter whether the city was correct in its belief that there would be higher turnover if persons with high scores were hired, so long as it did believe this (and had some basis for believing it, accurate or not).
I went to a class with guys in that dept
They told me that guy was a wierdo with a strange past and a way to bypass him was to use this test against him. The score of this test is then used in an interview with a psychologist.
Plus I don't think anyone would do this anymore for obvious reasons.
Legally totally beside the point
Unless the city officials lied, its official policy was to disqualify each and every applicat who scored above a certain level. The city officials swore that this too-high score was the _only_ reason the rejected applicant did not make it to the interview stage of the hiring process. The court, taking all these facts as givens, held that the city was entitled to reject applicants solely because they scored too high on the test in question. The gossip you may have heard means nothing as regards the legal principle decided by the court.
Correct.
But they didn't hire him because of other reasons, not because he had a high IQ. (From what I was told anyway, and I know for a fact this happens in Boston in different ways)
If so, then the city police officials lied...
... to the court.
No you have to read between the lines.
They officially tell the applicant that "they don't qualify" (I believe it even uses that exact phrase in the comming) but they have to quantitatively back up that decision per state law with a exam score from a select pool ( or whatever civil service law ct goes by). There are tons of civil service decisions in MA that use the same language.
Edit
"Didn't fit the profile". Was the term they used.
Other people can read the decision....
... and decide for themselves. I think your attempt to "read between the lines" is at odds with the legal arguments actually made to the court (and which allowed the city to win).
Cops have social skills?
Now that's funny.
Only if you don't know any cops
They're not all what you seem to think they are.
No it's not
http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
The comparable New York case
Is probably the cop suspended for allegedly beating a subway worker.
The BPD takes forever to get
The BPD takes forever to get rid of these guys, and often don't. And before every muttonhead jumps in and blames unions for that, there isn't a union in the city that wrote "unlimited protection of violent racist criminals" into its bargaining unit contract.
So, what did get written into the contract then?
What's the clause that makes them so difficult to terminate?
My guess is that the
My guess is that the difference between Doherty here and a significant minority of the BPD is Doherty got caught being an asshat. Therefore, the other asshats want to protect him for fear they will be exposed if Doherty gets pissed about his arrest.
His punishment will be severe!
Paid leave.
And if you do it again!
We'll pay you time and a half!! Just to teach you a lesson!!!
2013 earnings
According to the municipal salary database, Doherty earned $169,312.20 in 2013 - more than half of that from overtime and detail work.
So glad I work every day
To pay worthless people like this to beat people and watch construction.
Thanks Will!
How much do you pay in rent (divided by roommates) so i can have this cop send you a refund on all those real estate taxes you paid this year.
Not just property tax
You sound like the fools who try to tell us that gas tax covers all road building and upkeep.
It doesn't.
You are forgetting about all that money that the state doles out to cities and towns. That comes from somewhere ... somewhere like income taxes on all citizens?
Face it: we all pay for losers like this. All of us. If people are tired of that, we can stop you know.
We are taking about will here.....
He probably doesn't much state income tax. As a renter, the property he lives in probably generates more revenue to the city than his income tax,
And no, cities get much more out of property taxes than the do from income tax.
I'm sure will pay gas and electric bills
Part of those goes to the extreme cost of staring into holes.
Throw my rent onto the pile
Throw my rent onto the pile then too. And likely the other half a million reasonable people in this city.
Are you seriously defending this guy? My opinion of you goes down with each reply you put in this thread that seems to be doing so.
And good cop or bad cop, 160k per year is unreal. In the top 5% wealthiest people in the city in terms of annual income. Twice what I make working 55 honest hours a week. And half of that comes from "overtime detail"? Cushy gig
Do I defend him anywhere?
The cop is a piece of shit. There are probably another 100 in the job just like him.
That doesn't mean your 55 hour work week somehow makes you some sort of payroll boss. If you paid this guy to replace your gutters and he didn't show up because he was in jail, then it might effect you financially.
I pay almost 100k in real estate taxes a year. I never feel like the city owes me something if some teacher gets arrested for diddling a student or if some city hall clerk embezzled 50k last year. It's not right, but I don't feel like I own them because I pay a lot of taxes.
And the test is in April, go take it if you want to make more money. If love to work only 55 hours a week, but my tennants need me.
100K ?
Do you own several homes in Weston or was that a typo?
I own property
90% of it in Boston and Brookline. Although I admit some of that property I co-own with family members but I take care of the properties for the most part.
The driver would have been
The driver would have been safer had he been driving a BPD-approved cab.
Please explain
Please explain how this driver would have been safer. Had this happened in a taxi, nothing would have linked them together on the trip and this cop would have probably gotten away with this. Uber is significantly safer for both the driver and the passenger.
Perhaps you need to turn on
Perhaps you need to turn on your sarcasm detector, but I'm mocking the BPD for railing against the safety of Uber. Clearly it's unsafe for both passengers, and drivers.
Banned from Uber for life
Channel 25 reports.
So Mayor Walsh, is Doherty "G-O-N-E"?
Time to draw a line, and condemn this old school racist, thug, scumbag-with-a-badge, or just resign.
Calm down
'Old School'? Really?
He should be fired, after following the letter of the law and abiding by his collective bargaining contract.
Now now
I'll go after Dan when I think he's writing what you thought, and I thought he wrote that at first, but if you read what he wrote, he doesn't say Walsh should violate the law and CBA. He might want him to do so, but he didn't say it. He just wants Walsh to diplomatically call the guy what he is, a racist asshole.
Human Beings
Human being do the damnedest things when liquored up...
Or perhaps more accurately,
Or perhaps more accurately, their inhibitions are worn down and their true self comes out.
Threatening Twitter pic from former NY cop
Did y'all see this? Gun threat from former NY cop.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/blackbrunch-protests-disrupt-white-sp...
It's like cops are doing everything they can to remind us what terrible judgement they have.
I don't think all cops are bad, but Evans needs to clean house.
The minute
the article says "Contributes to Glenn Beck's The Blaze".. he lost any sense of anyone thinking he's sane and playing with a full deck.
sigh
What gives? I think right now the LAST thing the police want to do is send out the wrong image. And then we have idiots like Doherty and this guy doing crap like this.
Two steps forward.. three steps back. Always.
do we think that this is
do we think that this is coincidental or simply just being reported on more nationwide given that it's been in the news lately?
Gross misconduct
If there is not a clause that allows for an expedited termination in circumstances of gross misconduct like this, then that's a serious problem. And I would hope that it also stipulates that if the employee is found at fault, that they have to pay back what they made on leave, although that's probably too much to ask.
At least they charged him
The off-duty NYPD cop who assaulted a subway conductor last month and didn't turn himself in for a week, until camera footage surfaced, has just been put on leave but isn't being charged!
police salaries
Public workers salaries have been out of control for years...isn't that right? What has any govt official done about that...nothing. I wish they didn't have to have their pay decreased...but something has to happen...I can't afford them or fire or teachers or any govt officials salary anymore...they're simply overpaid and don't work much.
Why are they out of line?
Guy's base salary in 2013 was roughly $65,000. Doesn't seem outrageous to me, but what do I know?
That he made another $33,000 or so in overtime sounds like more of a management question than his fault - at what point does hiring new fulltime officers cost less than continuing to pay large amounts of overtime?
The rest of his salary was mainly due to details, which don't come out of city coffers. But you knew that, right?
The funny thing is that the
The funny thing is that the city actually MAKES MONEY on police details as well!
What do the dollars translate into.....
... in terms of the average hours workedper week, I wonder. I am guessing over 80 hours a week....
salaries
The public is calling for better trained and better educated police. However this guy believes all public employees are overpaid. The dilemma I see is how do the police attract more qualified candidates (i.e. college educated) without offering competitive salaries. And attract more minority candidates at the same time.
It might get worse before it gets better.....
Decal Patrick just cut educational incentives for police officers, (money given from the state) while wealthier towns kept the funding (by funding them on their own) and can now pay more for base salaries. The last two years a few dozen boston police officers transfered to suburban police departments. This was unheard of before the educational bonus was cut. Although the BPD has Been able to find quality candidates the last test, college educated police officers in the boston ranks will probably see a decrease in the next few years.
Governor Patrick cut it?
You mean the Great and General Court sent him a budget and he signed it. They alone have budget control.
You are a lot of things Swirly....
But you aren't stupid, even I'll admit that.
If you believe Patrick didn't specifically cut this out of the budget at his own request, you are naive.
From another site:
From another site:
"His ex-girlfriend, Mary Niland, was also in court Monday on charges in connection with the incident involving Doherty. She was accused of breaking into Doherty's home and attacking him and another woman. Her father said in that case, Niland was the victim and Doherty was the aggressor."
Why isn't he also charged with OUI?
By all accounts, he was tanked, drove a car, it was on a public way.
Should also be charged with that crime in addition to the AB.
Pretty sure OUI isn't against
Pretty sure OUI isn't against the law in Massachusetts.
Released on $500 bail
At his arraignment today. More to come.
Why isn't he also charged
Why isn't he also charged with grand theft or car jacking for taking possession of the cab?