Still More Decisions That Boston Police Department Improperly Bypassed Police Officer Candidates

In the last month or so, the Civil Service Commission has issued two more decisions that question the basis of Boston Police Department's bypass of candidates qualified for police officer.

The Boston Police Department will offer appointment as a police officer, subject to the candidate's successful completion of a health and medical screen. For the past several years, the Department has bypassed numerous candidates based upon psychological screenings that have been found to be, more or less, unsubstantiated and based upon the conjecture or bias of the screeners. The Department's psychological screens took a deserved beating in Police Dept. of Boston v. Kavaleski, 463 Mass. 680 (2012). Given the slow process of agency appeals, the Commission is continuing to clean up the mess created by the Department's faulty screenings.

The Commission has repeatedly found that BPD evaluators were practically lawless - making factual claims that were unsubstantiated, if not downright false; making diagnoses that were medically unsound; and making decisions about fitness beyond their carefully circumscribed role.

For example, in the Murphy case (attached below), the BPD's psych evaluators determined that Murphy was unfit because he had been diagnosed with ADHD as a child. Even though he was successfully treated for ADHD, the BPD's doctors reasoned that Murphy must have had some undisclosed abuse problem and other undesirable personality traits. The Commission had little difficult overturning this bypass.

In Rowley (also attached below), the evaluator said he had “concerns” and “questions” based almost entirely on Rowley’s interview performance and “cautionary flags” and claimed Rowley would struggle as a police officer and place other officers at risk. The evaluator cited no evidence in support of these conclusions about Rowley, who received praise during a stint as an Atlanta police officer. In sum, Dr. Johnson impermissibly found Mr. Rowley unfit solely because of his dislike of Mr. Rowley’s interview style, his erroneous opinion about his use of alcohol, and disdain for Mr. Rowley’s having complained to the BPD investigator about how he was treated by [another BPD Evaluator]." Again, the Commission stepped in to correct this injustice.