Mayor, commish at odds over distance limits
Police Commissioner William B. Evans’ call for a law limiting how close the public can get to officers while taping them at a crime scene got a lukewarm reception from his boss, Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who said it would be “very hard” to legislate.
“I think every incident is very different, and I think we have to be very careful with that,” Walsh said. “I think it’s going to be hard to legislate that. It’s going to be very hard.”
The Herald reported yesterday that Evans is calling for laws to regulate the proliferation of cellphone-toting citizens and so-called cop watchers dedicated to recording potential police misconduct. Evans said those who tape police sometimes provoke officers, interfere with their investigations and compromise their community policing efforts.
Evans also pointed to an Aug. 3 incident when members of a videotaping crowd ignored officers’ request for help as they struggled to take a man into custody who had outstanding warrants and kicked a cop in the chest. He said there should be a law on the books holding citizens accountable for not helping police in incidents like that.
Walsh said he plans to meet with Evans about that incident.
“I know he’s concerned about the incident with the police officer having a struggle with somebody and people videotaping it, so I think he’s a little concerned about people being too close to an incident,” Walsh said. “It’s something that we’re going to have to look at.”
State Rep. Russell Holmes of Mattapan also brushed off Evans’ idea, saying it runs counter to steps Boston police have taken to enhance transparency, such as releasing surveillance video of a man who was gunned down by cops after he shot a gang officer in the face.
“We want to have a transparent police department, and I think adding in layers would do the exact opposite of what he’s been doing for the past couple of months,” Holmes said of Evans, adding that citizens should be able to videotape officers as long as they’re outside the bounds of the yellow crime scene tape.
“Wherever the public would typically be anyway should be a place where folks should able to film,” he said.
Segun Idowu of the Boston Police Camera Action Team, a group pushing for local cops to wear body cameras, said the group is “very much against a law dictating what first amendment rights a citizen is allowed to carry out and to what proximity they can do so near an officer.”
But other police supported Evans’ call for drawing a brighter line in citizen encounters with police.
“We back him 100 percent,” said Lowell Capt. Kevin Sullivan, president of the 18,000-member Massachusetts Police Association. “That’s a fair deal.”
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