Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Boston, MA — On Tuesday, documents were released detailing the abuse and cover-up of said abuse carried out by Patrick M. Rose Sr., the former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association and Boston PD detective. Rose has been charged with molesting children, and the documents prove the department knew, and allowed him to continue to serve in their ranks and even engage with children.
The documents are redacted copies of internal affairs investigations into Rose. Boston Mayor Kim Janey’s office said the information was to be released to shed light on the baffling case of how Boston’s top cop was allowed to go on abusing children for decades.
“It is appalling that there was a documented history of alleged child sexual abuse, yet this individual was able to serve out his career as an officer and eventually become the head of the patrolmen’s union for several years,” she said. “Under no circumstance will crimes of this nature be tolerated under my administration, and we will not turn a blind eye to injustices as they arise.”
The evidence surfaced in 1995 when the Boston police department filed a criminal complaint against Rose for sexual assault on a 12-year-old boy. Despite the evidence, Rose managed to get the case against him dropped. An internal affairs investigation would later conclude that Rose indeed committed the crime, however, he kept his badge and remained a cop for the next years — continuing to abuse children over the course of the following two decades.
As MassLive reports, even after Boston Police Department investigators informed then-Commissioner Paul F. Evans in 1996 that there was credible evidence supporting allegations that one of the department’s officers had sexually assaulted a child, that officer was allowed to keep his job, according to the documents.
Janey said it is “deeply unsettling and entirely unacceptable that Rose remained on the force for two decades,” enabling his ascent to the top of the police union.
“What’s more, Rose was allowed to have contact with young victims of sexual assault during the course of his career, and we now know that he allegedly went on to assault several other children,” Janey said, in a statement.
Rose’s fall from police grace began last August when a father and his daughter walked into the station to file a complaint against Rose. The father and daughter alleged that Rose repeatedly raped her from age 7 to age 12.
Empowered by the original girl’s courage, over the next several weeks, more victims came forward detailing horrifying abuse by Rose spanning the course of decades.
As the Boston Globe reports, Boston police are fighting to keep secret how the department handled the allegations against Rose, and what, if any, penalty he faced. Over the years, this horrific case has come full circle: The father who brought his daughter in last summer to report abuse by Rose was the boy allegedly abused at age 12 in the 1995 case. The department’s lack of administrative action back then may have left Rose free to offend again and again, from one generation to the next.
Indeed, not only did this child predator keep his badge, but as he moved up through the ranks, he was sent to respond to cases involving children.
Rose has since been arrested and has pleaded not guilty to 33 total charges involving six alleged victims and is being held on $200,000 cash bail.
“Based on a review of former officer Rose’s internal affairs file conducted by the City’s Law Department, it is clear that previous leaders of the police department neglected their duty to protect and serve,” Janey said. “Despite an internal affairs investigation in 1996 that found credible evidence to sustain the allegation against Rose for sexually assaulting a minor, it appears that the police department made no attempt to fire him.”
While the idea of a police department covering up horrific crimes against children is certainly shocking, it is par for the course — especially within the Boston police department.
As TFTP reported in March, two other high profile top cops made the news over allegations of domestic violence. According to the Globe:
Last month, newly appointed Boston Police Commissioner Dennis White was abruptly placed on paid leave after details surfaced of a 1999 allegation that he had pushed and threatened to shoot his then-wife, who is also an officer. Just four days earlier, a veteran State Police supervisor, Sergeant Bryan Erickson, was jailed in New Hampshire, accused of choking and headbutting a woman — as well as leading police on a high-speed chase from the scene.
These cases sparked the interest of the Globe who dug deeper and found that they are anything but isolated. But even more worrisome is that in most instances of domestic violence, the officers face no discipline much less criminal charges.
According to the report, “of the dozens of State Police and Boston police officers who have been investigated over the past decade for domestic-abuse-related offenses, more than half have gone entirely undisciplined, records show — while some have remained on the job despite multiple allegations against them.”
But it gets worse, even when female cops complain that their husband cops beat them, this was ignored as well.
If they are so willing to ignore decades of child sex abuse, it should come as no surprise that domestic violence would also be swept under the rug.