To his credit, Evandro Carvalho, the executive director of Boston’s Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, is candid about the challenges he has faced since taking on that job a little more than a year ago, in May 2024. “We have been through a year of resetting,” he told the Editorial Board in an interview.
The office was established as the chief agent of police reform in Boston after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer spurred a national movement for police accountability. It’s supposed to investigate citizen complaints and also oversee the Boston Police Department’s own internal affairs reviews.
To say the office has had a rocky start is an understatement. Will it ever live up to its promise? Only with strong leadership from Carvalho and even stronger leadership from Mayor Michelle Wu, who has had little to say about police accountability since winning office in November 2021.
The office was created in 2020 by the Boston City Council — which then included Councilor Michelle Wu — and signed into law by Mayor Marty Walsh in January 2021. But the first meeting with cases brought before board members, who are appointed by the mayor, did not take place until August 2022. Since then, as the Globe reported in April, the office has been “beset by turnover and vacancies, failed to hold public meetings and produce public reports, had its website go dark for months, and only two of its recommendations for discipline were upheld by Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox — both resulting in oral reprimands.”
More recently, the incident involving two City Hall aides who were fired in the aftermath of an alleged domestic dispute cast more embarrassing shade on the office, when it turned out that one of the aides, who was also charged with assault on a police officer, was chief of staff for the office that is responsible for holding police accountable — OPAT.
Despite that grim history, Carvalho, a former assistant district attorney and state representative, insists that since he took over, the office has new momentum and is headed in the right direction.
For example, to increase visibility and build trust, Carvalho is holding biweekly coffee hours in different parts of the city. He also hired a community engagement officer and holds a monthly open office day at the office’s Nubian Square headquarters to encourage people to come in and meet staff members. Board members are also meeting regularly, as required by the law. For example, since Carvalho took over, there were four meetings with a full quorum. In the two years before he took over, there were six meetings, including three with no quorum.
The office’s website and dashboard also appear to be updated and working. However, the last report on it is dated Feb. 7, 2024, covering the period from July 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2023. Carvalho said he will file a report in July, at the end of the current fiscal year.
When it comes to actual investigations, however, the office’s effectiveness is still hard to pin down.
In a budget presentation to the Boston City Council that was held on May 5, the office reported that in 2024, it received 144 complaints. During that time frame, the Civilian Review Board that comes under OPAT has heard 29 cases, some involving multiple officers and multiple allegations. Within the nine cases that were sustained — meaning that the investigation disclosed sufficient evidence to support the allegations in the complaint — there were 24 allegations of misconduct that were also sustained.
Meanwhile, the office has never used its subpoena power, nor referred any Boston police officers to the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. According to Carvalho, that does not mean the office is not doing its job. “This is an agency in infancy. We need to understand where we are in the history of police reform,” he said. “There will be some bumps in the road.”
Carvalho is also candid about another challenge that comes with the job — the institutional resistance to the concept of outsiders judging the job being done by police. Asked about a recent statement from the Boston Police Detectives Union that described the office as a “third and redundant level of police oversight,” Carvalho said, “The movement of police reform, having to create this office, it’s a struggle, it’s a challenge.” But, he added, “when we look at the narratives about why we exist, it’s a civil rights issue, it’s a human rights issue. We have made significant progress.”
This editorial page has reported on several instances where the Police Department seems to be slow-walking internal affairs investigations, and has been less than transparent about those findings. In the most recent example, an investigation into determining the role that a Boston police pursuit might have played in a car crash that took place in January 2024 and killed three teenagers has been ongoing for months. The BPD has also refused to comply with a court order to turn over findings on one of the officers involved in the pursuit.
This is where Wu’s leadership really matters. When she first ran for mayor, Wu pledged to make police accountability a priority, but it’s not something she talks much about now. In this election year, she has already won the endorsement of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union — the first time in more than 30 years that the city’s largest police union has endorsed a mayor for reelection. While it’s good to have peace between the mayor and police, that should not stop Wu from demanding accountability and transparency from the city’s law enforcement officers — and OPAT should be an important part of that effort.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.