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yvonne abraham

Commissioner’s response not up to his standards

Boston police have launched an internal investigation after video surfaced of an off-duty officer roughing up a civilian in the Back Bay.
Boston police have launched an internal investigation after video surfaced of an off-duty officer roughing up a civilian in the Back Bay.
A video recorded in May showed Officer Edward P. Barrett on top of a pedestrian with his knee on the man’s back.

Where was the William Evans Boston knows and respects this past Tuesday?

Instead of being his usual conciliatory self, the police commissioner was uncharacteristically defensive this week, missing a couple vital opportunities to strengthen bonds with communities his officers serve and protect.

After four months, an investigation into an altercation between an off-duty police officer and a pedestrian on Boylston Street found that Officer Edward Barrett did not use excessive force after Milton Gurin hit his car window with an umbrella. Gurin said Barrett had cut him off as he crossed the street.

The widely viewed video of that encounter was disturbing. The man who shot it said Barrett had tackled Gurin and pushed his head into the ground. The investigation found that wasn’t so, that Gurin had tripped as he ran from the officer. At a press conference, Evans said there had been minor issues with Barrett’s behavior, but that he had mostly followed the rules. Barrett “clearly believed his car window was broken,” the chief said.

Fair enough. But a reasonable person could still conclude that the officer overreacted. After all, Gurin, then 64, had not broken the window. He hadn’t even scratched it, just left a mark that could be rubbed off. Clearly, Barrett’s emotions got the better of him. And while his behavior was found to be within the rules, police officers should have the restraint to take the high road in minor disputes — especially when they’re not easily identifiable as police officers.

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It would have been nice to hear Evans give voice to that view, to remind the public, as he has in the past, that he holds officers to high standards on and off duty. He was certainly critical of the person who shot the video and made some unfounded claims, and of Gurin, whom investigators suggested had harassed motorists before — a claim his attorney vehemently denies.

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Similarly, Evans missed a chance to build bridges in the wake of a Tuesday decision by the Supreme Judicial Court ordering judges to consider whether a black person who flees a police officer is doing so not because he or she is guilty of a crime, but because the person is trying to avoid being racially profiled. Evans said his officers “do a great job every day taking the guns off the street and . . . I don’t believe we racially target anyone because of their race.”

The decision cited an ACLU report, and a BPD report, that the court said showed racial disparities in police stops. The BPD has vehemently contested the ACLU report and said the court misinterpreted the BPD report. But the claim that police officers don’t racially target anyone is a big one — one that would be more credible if it were accompanied by an acknowledgment that there is room for improvement in relations between police and minority communities. The usual Evans would have made it and cited his efforts to improve things with, for example, new body cameras.

These are trying times. Evans has worked hard to prevent the tragic, disputed police shootings that have riven other cities. Days like Tuesday undermine those efforts, however. In an interview on Wednesday evening, the commissioner seemed to get that.

“I’m only human,” he said. He said he’s conscious of what’s happening elsewhere, and “I am as horrified at some of those incidents as anybody.” He said he wished the dispute on Boylston Street hadn’t happened. He said he knows the Barrett family, and that the police officer is “not the bully everyone seems to think he is. . . . What bothered me so much is everybody is jumping on us no matter what. And I know how hard we try.”

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The SJC decision upset him because it was based on an ACLU report he disputes, Evans said. “We are by no means perfect, we can always improve,” he said. “Maybe that didn’t come out.”

It didn’t. Chalk it up to a bad day for Evans — and the city.


Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com.