BPD fights reinstatement order for fired cop
Boston police are fighting a civil service order to reinstate and issue back pay to a cop fired last year after a domestic incident and arrest for having military-grade explosives at his home.
The Boston Police Department is appealing in Suffolk Superior Court the May 10 decision from the Civil Service Commission ordering fired officer Kirk Merricks to be rehired and paid back pay.
In the appeal, BPD lawyers called the civil service conclusion “an abuse of discretion” that’s “contrary to the broad discretionary authority afforded to the police commissioner” and ask it to be set aside. Police say the commission gave undue weight to “Merrick’s self-serving statements” and misstated evidence in the case.
Merricks, a former Marine who joined BPD in 1999, was fired in January 2017 after an internal investigation stemming from his 2013 arrest for possession of grenades, blasting caps and four quarter-pound sticks of TNT and an incident that same year where he allegedly kicked the door to the bathroom his then-wife had locked herself in during an argument.
Criminal charges in the explosives case were dropped when his wife failed to testify, but — together with information about the domestic incident and subsequent restraining order — internal investigators with BPD sustained eight charges against Merricks, including conduct unbecoming, untruthfulness, and six counts of conformance to laws for possession of the explosives.
Police spokesman Sgt. John Boyle told the Herald Merrick’s internal affairs file has 21 complaints. Eight were sustained, eight were not sustained, three were ruled unfounded, one was exonerated and the last was listed as “filed” but was closed. Merricks had a base salary of $88,758.54 in 2016, according to city records.
Efforts to reach Merricks were unsuccessful and court records did not list an attorney representing Merricks.
Civil Service Commissioner Cynthia Ittleman ruled BPD had not established just cause for the explosives charges against Merricks so a “separate discipline for only the domestic violence related change is warranted.” She ordered a 10-day suspension for Merricks and for him to be reinstated with back pay.
In May, Merricks’ attorney Brian Decker said the civil service ruling vindicated his client.
“It’s extremely satisfying the commission ruled in our favor and he’s going back to work,” Decker said in May. “The charges were dropped. It was unnecessary, we believe, for the department to take the actions it did.”