The Fence - Dick Lehr [139]
The Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis was also unimpressed with the department’s track record regarding Cox and Conley, saying Cox had become an outcast in “a department that’s never been able to locate its moral backbone with this case.
“It is Michael Cox who gets shunned, not the officers who beat him. Not the officers who are directly responsible for stripping Kenny Conley of his career at 29.”
By the end of the month—and a few weeks before the start of Mike’s trial—Evans finally took action that most familiar with the scandal considered long overdue. Burgio, Williams, and Daley were stripped of their badges and weapons and placed on administrative leave. Evans included a fourth, Kenny’s partner, Bobby Dwan, a bewildering move that left Bobby stunned and apoplectic; in short order, he hired one the city’s best lawyers to fight back.
Evans’s announcement made front-page news. But the commissioner was noticeably circumspect when asked why now? Why did he wait nearly four years after the beating to put the officers on paid administrative leave now?
“It’s a combination of a lot of things, a lot of information, all coming together, pieces from different investigations,” he told reporters. The implication was that new information combined with a dogged determination had created a critical mass requiring action. But no amount of spin could quell the notion the announcement was window dressing, a public relations move just before a trial where the department itself had been accused of engaging in a “pattern of indifference” to excessive force and the cover-ups that followed. In fact, in terms of the actual evidence, nothing of substance had changed or improved since Bob Peabody’s probe had ground to a halt two years earlier. The truth was Evans could have taken the officers off the street a long time ago.
Mike Cox certainly saw the action that way—as a stunt. “I was pretty infuriated,” he said. “It seems hypocritical to do this on the eve of a civil trial. It’s another move on their behalf to spin the best light they could.” His attorneys were angered as well, but Rob Sinsheimer saw Evans’s announcement as a “crack in their armor.” The timing, he said, looked so bad. “It made them look like they were panicking, and it emboldened us.”
Settlement discussions are part of any lawsuit, and during Thanksgiving week the pace of the talks picked up. Sessions were held in the jury room of Courtroom 18, where the trial was scheduled to start in early December. The presiding judge, William G. Young, attended, urging the parties to find a common ground. He sat at the conference table across from Mike Cox, and, while lawyers did most of the talking, the veteran jurist couldn’t help but notice Mike’s “quiet dignity.” Sinsheimer was always agitating the city’s attorneys with his nickname for the lawsuit: “Boston’s Rodney King case.” From the judge’s perspective, the city was offering relatively substantial money—a figure the newspapers put at $300,000. But there was a sense in the room that for Mike Cox it was the principle that was at stake, not financial compensation. The talks never came close to reaching a settlement—an impasse that seemed further proof of Mike’s feeling about justice and accountability.
The next day, the day before Thanksgiving, the judge issued a series of rulings setting the stage for the trial to finally begin. He cleaned up the case a bit, dismissing parts of Mike’s lawsuit, such as the claim that Police Commissioner Evans was personally responsible for violating Mike’s rights, as well as the charge the city had failed to provide him with medical care. But he rejected the police department’s bid to have the entire case against it thrown out. “The motion of the city for summary judgment is denied,” he said. “It’s denied as to their liability for failure to train, for failure to supervise, and failure to discipline. All of those matters warrant a jury trial and a jury trial will take place.” He also ruled Mike’s civil rights were, without question, violated by officers who beat and abandoned him. “I have