The Fence - Dick Lehr [30]
Then in late October 1989, a horrific crime in Boston captured the nation’s attention—and, by the time it was over, showcased how the Boston police and the media had fallen prey to racial stereotypes in the worst way. In the early evening, a suburban couple leaving a birthing class at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of Boston’s premier hospitals, was shot in Roxbury while in their car. The husband, Charles Stuart, suffered gunshot wounds but survived. His wife, Carol, died within twenty-four hours, and their son, born by emergency Caesarean section, died seventeen days later. Charles Stuart claimed a black man had robbed and shot them. Within days, Boston police stormed through a nearby housing project, turning it upside down and hunting for William Bennett, the black man homicide detectives insisted was the killer. The media coverage was unrelenting and swept the country. But the storyline turned out to be all wrong—in fact, it was a perverse and deadly hoax perpetrated by Charles Stuart. Nearly ten weeks after the sensational murders, it was revealed Stuart was the triggerman who shot and killed his wife. Charles Stuart committed suicide on January 3, 1990, by jumping off the Tobin Bridge into the Mystic River. Leaders of the minority community claimed Boston police were unable to see past racial blinders and had violated blacks’ civil rights during its reckless manhunt in Roxbury. The finger-pointing, lawsuits, and repercussions lasted for months and months.
Later in 1990, a nineteen-year-old man was shot and killed by two Boston police officers after he’d shot four times at the officers. The teenager became the first of five people shot and killed by police during the next twelve months. Police practices soon came under in-depth press scrutiny, when in the spring of 1991 the Boston Globe published a four-part series about the Boston police titled “Bungling the Basics.” Police officials were outraged and produced a point-by-point rebuttal. The city’s mayor, Raymond L. Flynn, meanwhile announced in May the formation of a blue-ribbon committee to review the newspaper’s findings. Flynn persuaded one of the country’s best-known attorneys to chair the committee—James D. St. Clair, who in the 1970s had served as special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate. In his thank-you letter to St. Clair for accepting the post, Flynn seemed to tip his hand—that he’d be happy to secure a clean bill of health for the police department. He noted in his letter that “Police Commissioner Roache has raised questions about the accuracy of the information contained in the article and the conclusions drawn by the reporter.”
But if Mayor Flynn was looking for a whitewash, he didn’t get one. Ten months later, on January 14, 1992, the “St. Clair Commission” submitted its findings to Flynn in a blistering 150-page report, concluding the police department’s workings were deeply flawed and that Police Commissioner Mickey Roache was an utter failure who should step down.
“I’ve always believed if you have a talented team and it’s not winning games, you fire the manager,” St. Clair told the Boston Globe about the panel’s recommendation that Flynn fire Roache . “This team has talent, but it’s not winning any games.”
The panel had interviewed hundreds of residents and more than eighty police officers. “We found poor morale among the police force and a growing impatience in the community,” wrote the panel. “It is clear to us that