Policing the Police

The late of the policemen charged with beating up Joseph Proctor '67 ought to raise some questions about the department's present system of justice.

It everything four policemen allege against turn is true, Proctor opened his car door into a policeman, and came out of the car with his tests raised. In return for that be received a beating which left him badly bruised when a doctor saw him two and a half days later. Proctor says he was first hit while being arrested, later while being taken to the police station, and again at the station.

The patrolmen's answer was that Proctor was injured when he resisted arrest--in other words, that four officers were unable to take Proctor into custody without beating him severely.

A patrolman charged with using unnecessary force was given 200 hours punishment duty; another, charged with discourtesy to the public, was given 100 hours extra duty.

In other words, a student was beaten up, virtually without provocation, and the several punishment handed out amounted to a $700 fine. The point is not necessarily that the man in question should have received stiffer sentences--there was some question about who was responsible for Proctor's injuries--but that the police department should be sufficiently interested to find out whether one of its employees beat a man without provocation and, if so, to remove him from the force.

The kind of justice handed down in Proctor's case lends support to people in many cities who are suggesting that Police Department trial boards like the one that heard the Proctor case be replaced by civilian review boards. That the Boston police permit what is apparently a proven case of brutality to go so lightly punished suggests that the responsibility for investigating such complaints ought to be put in someone else's hands.