Share the wealth
Following overtime fraud and persistent failure to meet ticket quota, Governor Baker disbanded Massachusetts State Police Troop E. About 20 officers have retired or been suspended. They took overtime speed trap shifts and didn’t write speeding tickets. The rest, who made quota or didn’t get caught, will be reassigned to other troops. Some editorials called […]
Vehicle Emissions Standards—Now What?
The long awaited but not too surprising ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week on turning back the Obama era CAFÉ Standards seems to have confused the issue even more. At issue: by 2025, automakers who want to sell new cars to American consumers must boost a corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) to […]
The airheads of Troop E
The other shoe dropped in the Massachusetts State Police overtime scandal. A closet full of shoes. Twenty-one officers are in trouble for not making ticket quota. Twenty years ago the euphemism was “quality violations.” Quality meant dollars. Officers who didn’t bring in enough revenue would lose overtime. Leadership put that in writing and learned a […]
Sticks and stones
Recent news reminds us that politically incorrect speech is worse than murder. Police rounded up a gang of rogue ATV riders. In the struggle one rider was shot in the foot. And then the system went off script. A Massachusetts State Police officer could face charges for the shooting. He’s already suspended without pay. Not […]
Make $300,000 working at home
In Massachusetts, where public employee unions own the legislature, guaranteed overtime is one of the perks of being a police officer. City police spend paid details standing around watching other people work. State Police make their money running speed traps. Once again a system of structural overtime breeds corruption. Troop E is the revenue collecting […]
Whose lane is it, anyway?
I thought the car parked across the sidewalk was blocking the old woman on a walker, but it was parked there for her to enter. Which is still illegal(*). Sidewalks are no standing zones as well as no parking zones. Traffic authorities make everything illegal and trust police to overlook little old ladies boarding, politicians […]
Stand by your man
Can you name the bad police forces in your area? Off the top of my head I’ll pick Worcester, Springfield, Revere, Abington, and Stoughton. I’m not talking routine speed traps, I mean real problem cases. Robbery, burglary, major civil rights violations. How do they get that way? One reason is, it’s almost impossible to fire […]
They didn’t care who she was
A routine coverup blew up into big news in Massachusetts recently. State Police arrested a woman for driving drunk and under the influence of the heroin she had in the car. She said she traded sex for drugs. The officers put that confession in their report. She also said daddy would be furious. Daddy is […]
Get away from my lawn
Boston suburbs post “do not enter” and “no right turn” signs effective during morning rush hour to protect residents from having to watch nonresidents drive past. Here’s a little secret about those “gated community” ordinances: police rarely enforce them. Signs are cheap. Police officers are not and they have better things to do. I wrote […]
Ring of molasses
Massachusetts politicians filed a bill to charge tolls on all the highways leading to Boston. The mayor of Boston likes the bill because toll revenue would be spent in his city. The new tolls are seen as politically feasible because there won’t be any toll booths. Cameras will track every car and decide who to […]