Cops might get short end of the stick in policing bill

Gov. Charlie Baker ought to consult with Emerson Antonio Aroche Paz before he does anything about overhauling police policy in Massachusetts.

Emerson is the 41-year-old Waltham man who was blindsided on Thanksgiving Eve by an unknown assailant. Emerson was walking down the street when the man, without a word, randomly attacked him.

The man hit him twice on the head with a hard object and sent him sprawling to the street.

The man fled. Emerson, dazed and bleeding, dialed 911 and the Waltham Police responded. Emerson was taken to the hospital suffering facial fractures, a broken nose and lacerations.

He is the 10th man to be targeted in a series of vicious, unprovoked and random attacks, usually from behind, by a suspect who is still unidentified and still on the loose. There is a $5,000 reward for the man’s arrest and conviction.

“There is definitely a fear factor in our city right now,” Waltham Police Detective Sgt. Steve McCarthy told the Boston Globe. “We’ve never experienced anything like this.”

There was no politics involved in the attack — as far as is known — so Emerson’s take on the police would be of interest, as would the take of the nine other victims. Maybe Baker should talk to them.

So far, the sweeping police “reform” bill on Baker’s desk has pitted anti-cop activists against the cops. The activists are protesting policy brutality in the wake of the George Floyd killing by a Minneapolis cop, which does not have much to do with Massachusetts.

The cops are charging that the activists are out to destroy police policy as we know it, and that the bill is an example of the police being “disregarded, dismissed and disrespected.”

In the meantime, no one is asking the average taxpaying Massachusetts citizen, like Emerson and the others who have interacted with the police, what they think.

These are your everyday citizens who are too busy working to attend anti-cop demonstrations. Unlike the chanting demonstrators, they do not have the governor’s ear.

Instead what you get are politicians talking to politicians on Beacon Hill, the majority of whom bend to the will of the mob, which has drowned out the cops, let alone the average citizen.

The legislative-approved bill before Baker would just about strip local police chiefs and local officials of control of their police departments. The state would dictate local police policy, like limiting the use of force, banning chokeholds, limiting no-knock warrants and, among other things, limiting the use of tear gas.

The most important aspect of the bill, however, deals with the lead in to eliminating qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is a shield that protects cops from being personally sued for actions taken while doing their duty. If stripped of qualified immunity, a criminal could sue a cop if the criminal felt he had been mistreated.

The pending bill creates a civilian-dominated nine-member Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, a new bureaucracy complete with lawyers, staff and investigators. The commission would bypass local police chiefs and certify all police officers every three years.

It would also — after a complaint and investigation — have the authority to revoke a cop’s certification if the board determined that the police officer committed some wrongdoing, like using excessive force.

Without certification a cop would be unemployable by any police department.

Also, that revocation would then open the police officers to civil suits launched by suspected criminals who believe they were badly treated.

Baker filed a similar, albeit slimmer, bill to the one now before him, so there is no chance he will veto the bill passed by the Legislature.

Baker’s other options are to sign it as is, send it back to the Legislature with proposed amendments, which is most likely, or let it become law without his signature, which will not happen.

Whatever he does, it is possible that the cops will get the short end of the stick, turning cops into fops.

So, there could come a time when, for instance, a Waltham cop captures the coward who has been assaulting people. Hopefully the cop will not use excessive force, like clubbing him, if cops still carry clubs, that is.

Otherwise the assailant, after the district attorney drops charges, will sue the now decertified and jobless cop, taking his savings, his house and his kids’ college fund.

Could that happen?

Of course it could. This is Massachusetts.