Community qualms with BPD brass
Civil rights groups, religious leaders and the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO) have often clashed with Hub top cop William B. Evans over race-related issues affecting the department and city, among them: • A Herald special report in 2014 found that more than 330 murders between 2004 and 2013 remained unsolved. Black leaders blasted BPD because more than two-thirds of those slayings had taken place in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. Police solved only 38 percent of the murders of black males, the report found, compared to nearly 80 percent of the slayings of white men over that decade. • A Herald review a year later found that the number of minority rank-and-file Boston police officers had actually dipped slightly during Walsh's 16 months in office — despite his repeated campaign vows to increase diversity. At a time when census figures showed the Hub's minority population at 53 percent, the review found that the number of black, Hispanic, Asian-American and other officers of color had dropped from 727 the last year of the Menino administration to 712 — or just 33.5 percent of the entire police force.
• MAMLEO has also levied allegations that minority officers are punished more severely than their white colleagues and many promotions within the department are based on cronyism instead of merit.
• Walsh and BPD have also come under fire of late for delaying the rollout of a department-wide body-camera program that supporters say creates transparency and accountability.