by @BarryRafkind in Crime
Posted on July 21, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Last Modified on August 2, 2009 at 4:09 pm
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Many questions remain unanswered from George Hassett’s July 16th Somerville Journal article “Somerville vet awarded $225K after police beating“.
Here are my questions. Feel free to add your own!
- Are SPD officers James Slattery, Sean Sylvester and Kevin Shackelford still on the job? If so, why?
- What information is in these officers’ records? Have they been involved in any other acts of brutality?
- The article mentions that Slattery hit Romelus in the head. What did the other two officers do in the attack?
- Was Romelus’ beating racially motivated? Do the words “watch your mouth, boy” indicate racial bias?
- What is known about that “possible drug deal” behind the building that the officers were allegedly investigating?
- Why would three officers attack Romelus while he was working?
- How did other employees and customers in Good Time Emporium react when the incident took place?
- Why did they attack him so brutally?
- Why did it take a year before Mayor Curtatone learned about the incident? That seems like an incredibly long time for such a bizarre situation to go unnoticed. It seems especially odd given that the city’s prosecution of Romelus resolved in July 2007, almost exactly one year after the incident. So, if the city was prosecuting him, why was the mayor kept in the dark? That doesn’t seem possible.
- Since Romelus was “willing to avoid filing suit against the city if prosecutors and police dropped the criminal charges”, then why did the city continue to prosecute him knowing that they had a weak hand to play? Because of our city’s incompetence, we’ve now lost $255k of tax payer money.
- Why did City Solicitor Gannon try to hide the settlement from the BOA?
- Why did Alderman White threaten to eliminate the settlement funds? What would have been the consequence of that?
- What did SPD Chief Holloway tell the BOA to convince them to approve the funds?
- Has the city ever made any other settlements of this nature?
Updates on Aug 2, 2009 :
- This Aug 31, 2005 SJ article documents Romelus’ completion of basic training with the Marines.
- This July 12, 2006 SJ article documents the incident at Good Time Emporium from the police briefs.
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Update on the officers: According to the Somerville Journal’s list of 2008 municipal salaries above $50k (pdf), they were still on the payroll earning gross wages of:
* Officer James Slattery Jr., $113k
* Officer Sean Sylvester , $99k
* Kevin Shackelford , $147k
Why were these officers still employed at the SPD when they brutally attacked an innocent man and it resulted in a $225k settlement that the city can ill-afford?
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They are still on the job because the criminal charges were dropped.
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Janine, the criminal charges against Romelus were dropped after he was acquited by a jury. But the officers still seem like a liability for the city, so one would think the city would not want to keep them around. However, there might be some legal rules that prevent the city from terminating officers who have not been found guilty of misconduct. I wonder if there has been any type of internal investigation into the incident?
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There must be. If the officers were fired, the lawsuits would be more than the $225k paid out. I have issues with the mayor and the city solicitor about this.
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I wonder if they gave the training workshop in Cambridge, prepping the Cambridge cop for Gates? Or, perhaps, the Cambridge cops trained them? And I wonder who makes more, the Cambridge cop with Gates or ours with a Vet? And I wonder if a full professor at Harvard is more arrogant than a Cambridge cop? or whether Cambridge and Somerville are as different as they seem to have become?
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The really henious thing is the amount we’re paying to cops via details/OT!! We could hire additional cops and provide more services or tax cuts if we ever reigned in all the cop’s excessive details and OT!
Joe, Gates is a racist and a pompous blowhard. I’ve met him. Crowley should have thrown a beating on him. Not because of his race (he is more than 50% Irish – Gates that is), but because of his “do-you-know-who-I-am” attitude.
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Xumi,
We’re all racists. The issue is class more than race, but they play back and forth so much it’s not worth distinguishing between them. What’s important is what to do about it, however, and the fact that Somerville is not compared to, and then redeemed from, Cambridge is shocking in terms of media, insulting in terms of an extraordinary opportunity to help more people become more involved in real community policing, and particularly so among progressives. How in the world can people think themselves progressive in a city where cops beat up black veterans and college students with no apparent change in their duties, and where, instead of solving that problem, the cops gloat over raiding a bunch of queer hustlers at the Holiday Inn. Is this another case of beating up fags, or is it an opportunity to change – and change deeply – how the cops can become more positively engaged in a community that cares?
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I wanted to believe that Professor Gates was right when this incident took place. But the more that comes out makes me believe that he was the one screaming about race. I think that once the tapes comes out of the incident he will look like a fool. This in no way condones what other cops do to others. I am only speaking of this one incident.
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Xumi, I agree with you about the misuse of funds to pay some cops outrageous amounts for overtime and details when the money would be far better spent on real policework or other public services. Especially if the ones working OT & details are also roughing people up!
There is so much division in both Cambridge & Somerville due to class, race, income and immigrant status. I think we all could use some sensitivity training to get over the unconscious attitudes we have so we can see both cops and people in our communities as human beings and not overreact in stressful moments as it appears Gates, Crowley, and the Somerville policemen in this story did.
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What I’m finding so strange in these responses is that, although the cases – Gates/Romelus – have some parallels, how in the world can someone – as two did here – say that paying detail cops more outrageous than letting them beat up black guys AFTER they’ve handcuffed them!? Vicious, unnecessary, and gratuitous violence trumps fraud and crappy billing in my book! The fact that they compound whatever personal crime they perpetrate with overcharges and fiscal bullying is just icing on a very, very bad cake that makes Cambridge and Boston look like nirvana and Somerville look a lot more like Alabama than MY IDEA of an All American City!
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