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Wu appoints new police commissioner; he rose through BPD ranks after being beaten by other officers

New Police Commissioner Michael Cox

Cox speaks at Gertrude Howes Playground in Roxbury as former SJC Justice Geraldine Hines, on the commissioner search committee, listens.

Mayor Wu today announced she has appointed Michael Cox, a lifelong Bostonian who rose through BPD ranks to assume a variety of command posts, as the city's new police commissioner.

For Cox, 57 and born in Roxbury, the job is a homecoming - he has spent the last three years as police chief in the small Michigan city of Ann Arbor.

Cox is best known locally for a 1995 incident in which he was savagely beaten and kicked by other officers as they were chasing a shooting suspect in Roxbury, leaving him with serious kidney damage and facial injuries. Nobody was ever charged for the attack, save for one officer who denied seeing Cox stomped - and his conviction was ultimately overturned.

Cox started a press briefing this morning by discussing the beating - and how it convinced him to stay in on the force.

"I have dedicated my life to making sure both the Boston Police Department and policing in general has grown and learn from the experiences, at least, that I went through then," he said of what he called a prime example of "unconstitutional policing."

He added, "the reality is I love public service. ... Part of my healing process was [figuring out] what do I want to do with my life?" He decided "I'm going to stick around and see if I can figure it out." The result, he said, was he took a lot of classes - he has both a master's in criminal justice and an MBA - and he rose from an officer in District B-3 to serving in a variety of command positions in BPD, including heading Internal Affairs, overseeing the three police districts in the southern part of the city as working as assistant chief of investigative services.

Cox replaces acting Commissioner Gregory Long, who has served for a year and a half, after Commissioner William Gross suddenly resigned, and Mayor Walsh replaced him with Dennis White, whom he then suspended a couple days later after details surfaced about domestic-violence allegations in his past.

Cox said that one of his main goals once he assumes his post on Aug. 15 is a return to the sort of community policing Boston was once known for. The past couple of pandemic years have made it hard for officers to actually walk beats and become part of their communities, but that's vital to ensure the public learns to trust officers - and that officers learn what their communities need, that the public can believe that "we are here, that we care; we need to listen we need to listen and take feedback." He said he also wants to see an expansion of events at which officers get to meet the public, everything from coffee hours to participating in peace walks.

"Boston is a very diverse city," he said. "We need go learn about the diversity of the city, all the cultures so we don't offend them in any way, so we don't traumatize them in any way."

He said that's a lesson he learned the hard way when he took the job in Ann Arbor - and quickly got suspended by the city manager for overly brusque with some members of his new department. He said what was just normal police talk in Boston just didn't translate well to a small Midwestern city.

He added that, back in Boston, the communications and learning will can't avoid the past: "We have to own some of the historical stuff that happened in the past so we can move forward."

At the same time he works on reviving community policing, he said, he plans to work closely with officers and their commanders to make sure they get the support and training they need. He said he's not at al a fan of defunding. He said he recognizes that there's a major role for mental-health and related services, but that they should be funded by themselves, rather than taking away from the money used to create a more professional police staff. "If [money] is taken from one to give to another something is going to give."

He said that both goals can unit in assuring a more diverse department that better reflects the diverse city it serves. "We really need to get into all our neighborhoods to attract folks to [police work]." He said that attracting diverse candidates is an issue right now, because a lot of people don't want anything to do with police, never mind look at possible jobs as officers.

Mayor Wu said Cox was one of four finalists recommended by a search committee - with a mix of both BPD and out-of-town candidates. But Wu said that she realized Cox was "the one" just minutes into their first conversation about the job.

"His love for Boston shines through," she said. "There was just such a sense of hope and excitement and joy about what we could get done together."

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Comments

Crack down on the useless Police Details and get cops to pay attention to their main job.
I won't hold my breath.

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Perhaps you don't realize that details are all overtime positions; no regular police work is being subtracted from by officers on details.

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I said they should pay attention to their regular job. And it isn't overtime, it's details paid by private companies forced to have a police officer (or more) stand at a job site watching people work. It takes away from a cop getting rest between shifts and distracts them from doing a proper job. Just my opinion .

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If the pols are too scared to tackle the detail scam, maybe the new commissioner can put a cap on hours worked in a 24 hour period. Then we may have fewer cops working their shift, "working" some OT, and then catching up on sleep during the detail.

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You can’t work more than two eight hour shifts/details in a 24 hour period.

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At least five Boston police officers were ordered to work 24-hour shifts on two recent weekends, union officials said Tuesday, raising fiscal and public safety concerns.

Calderone said the union “condemned” the practice of forcing officers to work double or triple shifts, which last 16 and 24 hours, respectively. Triple shifts remain relatively rare but are more common in the summer when the city holds a host of special events that require extra officers on duty, as was the case on two recent Saturdays, July 9 and June 25, he said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/12/metro/some-boston-police-officers...

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These are overtime shifts that the officer has no choice in refusing. Details are optional and officers are not forced to work them.

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I think they're probably talking about people who do 50 hours of details on top of their 40 hours but use those 40 hours to catch up on sleep in their cruisers or are just too burnt out to do effective policing.

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If anybody is interested in getting some insight in to Commissioner Cox' background, I highly recommend The Fence, by Dick Lehr. It covers the story about the beating and delves quite a bit in to the mid-90s BPD culture. Somebody who went through his experience and came out on the other side still wanting to serve is a very dedicated public servant.

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1) interview "halo" effect rarely turns out well.

2) who could get upset with folks in a chill 420 town like Ann Arbor to the point of a suspension?

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who could get upset with folks in a chill 420 town like Ann Arbor to the point of a suspension?

As someone who moved to Boston from the Midwest...people in Boston swear waaaay more. It took me a while after moving here to realize that folks around me weren't super angry or upset all the time.

Not saying for sure that's what happened here, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

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https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/02/ann-arbor-police-chief-to-r...

The investigation, conducted by outside firm Miller Canfield, revealed that a police lieutenant conducted two separate investigations into parking officials dismissing tickets, including a supervisor who ordered a parking officer to void a ticket outside of city policy. The lieutenant, as well as other police department and city staff, alleged that Cox tried to sway the lieutenant’s investigation toward a result that didn’t lead to disciplining the supervisor, according to the report.

Lazarus also accused Cox of insubordination during the course of the investigation, saying the chief attempted to talk to officers in violation of an order made in the administrative leave notification. Cox contended that he heard he was on leave through different means, and that he tried to speak with his deputy chiefs to discover the reasons why.

“Candidly, I did not read the letter placing me on administrative leave until I had already violated its conditions,” Cox said in a response to the investigation report. “I was willing to obey that directive, but suffered a lapse in judgment facilitated over my profound confusion... over the City Administrator’s decision."

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Thanks for finding that. Yeah, that's definitely quite a bit sketchier than I was thinking (and way sketchier than Cox seems to be implying in his statement above). Would love to see someone push harder on Cox and Wu about this!

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I remember when this happened. Vindication. The best revenge. You love to see it.

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Michelle Wu promised big and bold and she continues to deliver. Great pick backed by a great resume. Outstanding.

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His own fellow officers beat him nearly to death. They're all still on the force, and one got a fat check for keeping his mouth shut.

Disgusting. This is why the BLM movement exist. These officers don't even respect black officers within their own ranks.

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Since he didn't just walk away.

Granted, he also sued the city for $900,000 and won, and he sued one of the two cops he alleged beat him (they settled out of court), but he also had a career in which he persevered and, in the end, rose to the top of his profession.

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Isn't exactly a "small Midwestern city." It's basically the Cambridge of Michigan, with UM and nearly the same population as well. It'd be the 4th-largest city in Mass. if it were here.

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Yes, Cambridge isn't really a small city, either (it's no Marlborough), except when compared to Boston.

Ann Arbor has a police budget of roughly $30 million, compared to a BPD budget of roughly $400 million.

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I've lived both places. A big difference between Ann Arbor and Cambridge is that AA is an hour from a very miserable city, whereas Cambridge is part of a vibrant metropolitan area. AA is more like Allston-Brighton, if A-B were an hour outside New Haven instead of part of Boston.

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with a very big state university.

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Ann Arbor loses a quarter of its population in the summers. It's a very different place without all those students.

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The Dorchester Reporter has more detailed answers from Cox to questions from reporters this morning.

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