BOSTON (WHDH) - Mayor Kim Janey has been open about her plans to make police reform a priority during her time in office and said one of the first cases she will be focusing on is the Boston police internal affairs investigation of former officer and accused child rapist Patrick Rose.
Janey did not mince words when announcing the start of her new Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, which will deliver a plan for review and reform of police internal affairs procedures within the next couple of months.
“The focus is to understand how this disturbing case happened so we can ensure it never happens again,” she said.
The office will be looking at why the leadership of the Boston Police Department allowed Rose to remain on the force for 20 years — even after investigators found credible evidence he molested a child in the mid-1990s.
Last summer, Rose was charged with assaulting six children.
“It was more important for the BPD to protect one of their own than to protect children,” she said.
Earlier in the week, Janey released redacted infernal affairs files on the case and accused previous leaders of the department of neglecting their duty to protect and serve.
Former commissioner Paul Evans, who served at the time the allegations against Rose were first made, defended his role in a statement that read:
“…to suggest that there was any lapse in leadership or dedication to bring this case to a different conclusion is not consistent with the facts. Anyone who asserts that leaders of the police department neglected their duty to protect and serve is wrong.”
Janey said she disagrees. “If that officer wasn’t terminated it’s indefensible.”
Evans’ statement says he could not fire Rose because the alleged victim recanted the allegations meaning there were no criminal charges.
But, Detective Larry Ellison, the former President of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers said that is not true.
“I know of a case where an officer, a fellow Black officer, there was an allegation of a sexual assault, in which his wife made the allegation. She recanted and said it did not happen, and yet that officer was terminated,” Ellison said.
Janey said an officer accused of something like this would be terminated if it happened on her watch.
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