At least they asked: State Police sought to destroy payroll records

By adamg on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 9:29am

WBUR reported that in the midst of an overtime scandal, State Police sought permission from the Secretary of State's office to destroy "more than 160 boxes of documents tracking payroll, detail assignments, attendance and personnel records - some dating back as far as 26 years."

Free tagging:

State Police

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Comments

F Troop

By John Costello on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 9:49am.

Now with even more pending jail time.

I appreciate how the BPD and a number of other departments handles the, um, bad doers of our area, but the Staties having been behaving like, a frat house. What type of culture is this that we have to deal with as taxpayers?

It is like we gave a few state rep's staffers a military wing, but with the State House culture of work. There are the good ones who will make the call for you or see that you get the call you need for information, but then there are the ones who are there because he is so and so's guy. Utterly unprofessional.

I'm not saying the entire State Police is corrupt, but a request to destroy evidence? That is a felony, no? Annie Dookhan and the false conviction brigade, overtime corruption here and there, this is crazy.

Charlie has been in office for 3.5 years. He owns this but will deflect because we have a decent budget and everyone is at work. Charlie just deflects. Just remember that in November.

But yeah, Staries, refuse to

By anon on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 10:02am.

But yeah, Staries, refuse to give up the Seaport to the much better, much more professional and significantly less corrupt BPD.

Marty has connections in the

By anon on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 11:12am.

Marty has connections in the legislature. If anyone is able to get the state pass a law about jurisdiction in Seaport, it's Marty.

About that

By BostonDog on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 1:09pm.

If he and other on Beacon Hill had any sense they'd use this as an opportunity to revamp the entire agency state wide. Open up that closed bus ramp, get them out of the seaport, and allow civilian flaggers at details.

Thank you for giving some

By Rob on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 10:13am.

Thank you for giving some context to this Adam.

The newsreader on the radio this morning made it sound as if MSP had gone ahead and destroyed records already and didn't mention anything about asking for clearance to do so. The newsreader did indicate that they were records from a period in time not covered by the recent cases.

From the point of view of the public interest, it's not a good idea to destroy or allow the destruction of any MSP payroll records until this is all sorted out (in case the scope of the investigation expands) - but it is important to know that they weren't exactly disappearing stuff in the dead of night, they were actually following some sort of procedure and checks/balances.

What's the core intended role of the State Police anyways?

By Parkwayne on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 10:21am.

So patrolling the interstates, that makes sense. Dealing with multi-jurisdictional crime, that makes sense (organized crime, drug dealers, etc...)

Why is it apparently impossible to simply remove the crazily pointless stuff like they have jurisdiction over the Southwest Corridor, VFW, Esplanade, Seaport, etc... You'll never convince me it isn't far more effective to have BPD patrol all areas in the city outside of say, the Harbor.

One would hope that these endless scandals allow the Governor to burn off the needless waste around the Staties so we just have the core mission intact and fully supported by professional officers.

I feel like I did this last week

By Waquiot on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 11:33am.

But once again, for the sake of the newcomers, here it is.

When Bill Weld took office in 1991, there were four separate police forces that were merged into what we now know as the Massachusetts State Police- The Capitol Police (who patrolled the State House), the Registry Police (who oversaw road tests and other RMV related activities), the Metropolitan District Commission Police (who patrolled the Metropolitan District Commission's parks, which are now DCR parks), and the classic State Police, who patrolled highways, Massport facilities (hence the oddness in the Seaport), and had some duties in rural areas because we don't really have counties.

Those things above are the roles of the Massachusetts State Police. And they do homicide investigations for municipalities that don't have the resources.

Hope that helps.

DCR needs to go

By Parkwayne on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 1:34pm.

There's no reason the local PD can't just take care of DCR territories - that's the very first thing that needs be changed.

The registry thing is fine - that's a state level thing as is the state house. Obviously regional support for local PD makes sense but as noted by another poster, Staties doing detail work and Staties patrolling land in Boston where we have a $400m police force is just absurd.

DCR needs to go?

By Waquiot on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 1:58pm.

You think the City of Boston would do a better job maintaining the parks along their entire border with the Charles River along with the Neponset parks without any additional funds?

DCR has very large reservations

By anon on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 2:05pm.

The towns out west would not be able to police them at all, ever. Enormous burden!

Not exactly

By Parkwayne on Wed, 10/10/2018 - 3:41pm.

I meant BPD should patrol DCR property within Boston city limits.

but... yes, if you took the DCR budget and gave it to the Boston Parks / DPW depts., they would be better stewards than the patronage riddled DCR, 100%.