The 22-year-old son of Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis was about to drive home from the TD Garden Monday night when a patrolman stopped him, concerned he might have had too much to drink to be behind the wheel, according to a report.
Philip Davis was not arrested, but the case remains under investigation and police have notified senior Suffolk prosecutors about the incident.
Comments
Of course every impaired driver would have received the exact same treatment because nobody would want to upset the Chief of Police. Someone needs to be fired for this coverup.
My thoughts and prayers are with the young man's girlfriend, who obviously should be looking for a more suitable mate.
Good judgement to stop the 23 year old from driving, but to drive the couple home is over the top. No one ought to be fired over the incident. However, the police spokeswoman reports, "In these types of stops, officers have complete discretion, based upon their observations, to determine what, if any further steps should be taken." Now_that is a loaded statement, which means trouble to many, many drivers who are stopped by police officers who find it all too easy to lie, and as previous school yard bullies are the fellows who glorified in beating up class mates.
The cop who stopped him should have intervened before the kid drove out of the garage. A cop is told an impaired driver just go into a truck and what does the cop do? He waits for him to drive so he can bust him. Well, what if the driver killed a pedestrian on the way out of the garage? What if the kid ran when the blue lights came on and there was a high speed chase, and someone got killed? More importantly, what happened to common sense in policing?
In my many years on the job I have arrested many, many drunk drivers. I have also given rides home to complete strangers. It depends on the circumstances. I think this officer did it right. He didn't do it on his own, he checked with a supervisor and wrote a report.
If the Commissioner's son had a bad driving record or prior DUI, that would be different.
I think this is a very good commentary on the Police procedures in the City of Boston. Policemen should be viewed as protecting the public. It seems to me that the officer in this case used good judgment. What is wrong with assisting a citizen who is in trouble/
Given the state of the world today I think that this is evidence that we live in a civil and law abiding society. I commend the Mayor and Police Commissioner for protecting the public. Kudos to Commissioner Davis and Mayor Menino.
Good for the cop. And good for the kid to agreeing he'd find another way home. We need a bit less of this "zero tolerance" stuff and more common sense. And no, I wouldn't expect that a cop would drive me home under similar circumstances. But the cop was off duty and if he wants to brown-nose that way, so be it.