One big reason Boston wants to can Barrett: New book on 1995 beating of black cop - by white cops

[tj2001]

More national attention on one of the most racist cities in America:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072003216.html?sub=AR

The Perils of Being A Black Police Officer
A New Book Chronicles 1995 Beating in Boston
By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

BOSTON -- This old city has long been bewitched and enlivened by the racial dynamics of black and white. Sweet uplift traveling alongside bitter tonic. The warring sagas have often seared right into the consciousness of America itself... In 1974 a desegregation plan unleashed havoc as hundreds of whites morphed into angry mobs. In 1988 inmate Willie Horton became a symbolic talisman in the presidential campaign of Gov. Michael Dukakis: Horton, a convicted murderer, had been released under a weekend furlough program backed by Dukakis and eventually committed armed robbery and rape. Some saw the GOP ads featuring Horton as racial flame-throwing: Horton was black.

Two years later, in 1989, Charles Stuart said his pregnant wife had been shot by a "black man" who rushed up to his car. Boston police began stopping young black men, hungry for an arrest. There was no black man; Stuart later jumped from a bridge and died. His brother had implicated him in the murder.

And this is what happened on a January night in 1995. A young black man had been gunned down in an eatery. A neighborhood resident dialed 911 claiming an officer had been shot: He later said it was the quickest way to get help in an inner city establishment. Four black suspects were being pursued across a 10-mile area. On a dead-end street, police believed they had cornered one of the suspects. They pummeled him before he uttered a word, using a baton, fists, and boot-laden feet. The "suspect" spurted blood, dropped to the cold ground, tried to get up, only to be beaten more. His gurgling words were unintelligible through blood and pain.

The "suspect" was actually Michael Cox, a decorated undercover police officer who had himself been in pursuit of the suspects, had even been in the lead chase vehicle. And who happened to be black.

At least two and possibly three officers participated in Cox's beating. More than two dozen officers would eventually arrive at the scene, some who held supervisory positions. But in the follow-up investigation, no officer took responsibility for the beating. Cox survived...

[BuyingThyme]

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