Boston City Councilor and mayoral candidate Tito Jackson is defending his recent criticism of Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans. “I want transparency and accountability,” he told Jim Braude during an interview with Greater Boston, just a few hours after the commissioner joined Braude and co-host Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio and declared he did not want to be used as "a political pawn."
Earlier this week, Jackson made headlines when he publicly criticized Evans’ performance as police commissioner and hinted that he might seek a new head of the department if he wins the mayoral race against incumbent Marty Walsh.
“I admire all our Boston police officers,” said Jackson. “They do an honorable job and they work hard every single day. The criticism that I’m lodging is… on Mayor Walsh as well as the administration of Commissioner Evans.”
Among Jackson’s major complaints are Evans’ handling of the police body camera roll-out and what he characterized as insufficient clearance rates on homicide and other shooting cases—points on which Jackson doubled down with Braude.
“The Boston Police Department has failed to fully implement body cameras,” he said. “They continue to drag their feet and now they’re extending, for another six months, a pilot. This is proven technology. We are not first to the market on this issue and we, as a city, should continue to lead and not follow in this space.”
The department announced earlier this month that it was extending the body camera pilot program by another six months so it can collect more data—a decision that Evans said was discussed at a public meeting. “We had a body camera meeting and I think it was an hour and a half, two-hour meeting,” Evans told Braude and Eagan on the radio. “We had a great discussion and I think he [Jackson] came in the last five minutes of the meeting…. And when we left there, we didn’t see that people had any complaints with the whole idea of extending it.”
Jackson countered that he had another event that evening, but it was he who sponsored multiple prior meetings on the issue of body cameras. “Understand that this is a commissioner who did not want to put forward body cams,” he said, “and as a council we had to push this commissioner as well as this mayor to put forward body cameras.”
Jackson went on to condemn the $38 million he said has been paid out over the past seven years to settle cases brought against the department—all cases Evans argued began prior to his tenure as commissioner.
On the issue of Boston Police Department clearance rates, Jackson stood by his criticism as well. “The Boston Police Department only solves four percent of their non-fatal shootings,” said Jackson. “In addition, of the 19 young people who were shot, under age 17, under the Walsh administration to date—one of those by the way was my little cousin—zero of them have been solved.”
At the time of the show’s taping, Jackson’s website stated that there was a 30% increase in city homicides from 2015 to 2016— a point Braude questioned based on available data, which shows a 15% increase during that time, following a 15-year record low in 2015. Jackson told Braude he would not acknowledge the claim that his numbers were off.
“We actually have a very good relationship with the police department in our area,” Jackson said in response to Braude’s questions about his own successes as a city councilor. “The thing that I’m attempting to accomplish now is that we have the most transparent and accountable police department and we’re going to do that by getting body cams.”
Jackson added that he is proud of his work in assisting families who have been harmed during his time in office. “I’m going to continue to do that work with a full and comprehensive approach to trauma as mayor of the city of Boston.”
To see Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson's full interview with Jim Braude on Greater Boston, watch the video above.
