Sgt James Crowley had 8 Previous Citizen Complaints Against Him Including Racial Profiling

Are the Cambridge police capable of policing their own?

It is a difficult decision for a citizen, especially one who resides within Cambridge and must face these police every day, to actually go forward and file a complaint against a police officer, at the police station. I believe that for every complaint filed, there are a dozen who didn’t file the complaint, either because they did not know they could do so, or due to concerns about retaliation.

Reports that 8 citizen complaints had been filed against Sgt James Crowley were finally released today, weeks after the highly publicized arrest of the disabled Harvard professor at his own home. However, at the time of the arrest and droping of all charges of the Harvard professor, news media swarmed the story, repeating over and over again police assertions that Crowley was an exemplemary cop, who teaches a course on racial profiling, and could therefore never have behaved in an unfair way toward the professor. The MSM demeaned the Harvard professor, further, by repeting the police union's and the police commissioner's praise for both Crowley and for police proceedures. The media stories failed to include the fact that 8 other citizens had filed formal complaints, including two that alledged racial bias, because the police withheld this information.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/08/20/cambridges_sergeant_crowley_cleared_in_8_citizen_complaints/

How different the national story would have read if this information had been redily available..."Cop with 8 past complaints does it again!"

We learn that the police deemed none of the complaints against crowley to have any merit whatsoever.

What that shows is that the police, believing themselves members of “The Brotherhood,” take care of their own.

It shows is that these 8 complaints were whitewashed.

What it also shows is what I explained twice to Police Commissioner Robert Haas, “If you don’t hold Sgt James Crowley accountable, he will keep on doing it, and eventually he will do it to the wrong person.”