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***READ HERE THE DAILY FREE PRESS ARTICLE ON THE LAWSUIT FILED BY NLG-MASS AGAINST BPD AND BRIC.
Contacts
Chris DiOrio – 617-847-4343, pcdiorio@gmail.com
Urszula Masny-Latos – 617-308-0947, nlgmass-director@riseup.net
NLG-MASS CHAPTER FILES A LAWSUIT AGAINST BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT AND BRIC FOR VIOLATIONS OF PUBLIC RECORDS LAW
Boston, February 26, 2024 – Today, the National Lawyers Guild-Massachusetts Chapter (NLG) filed a lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court against the Boston Police Department (BPD) and Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) seeking a determination that the defendants have yet again failed to comply with the Massachusetts Public Records Law and their own written policies for records disclosure. The records sought are expected to expose police misconduct and an utter lack of preparation for a march through Boston on July 2, 2022, organized by the Patriot Front, a white supremacist hate group.
“Two days before Independence Day in 2022, the Patriot Front organized a ‘white nationalist march’ in Boston and paraded undisturbed through downtown Boston, dressed in uniforms, wearing white masks, and carrying heavy metal shields. Even though the event was well publicized by the group on its social media, there was no Boston police presence during the march,” said Urszula Masny-Latos, the Executive Director of the NLG-Mass Chapter. “In the fall of 2022, NLG made a public records request for documents from the BPD and BRIC to determine why the police were not prepared for or present at the march. As of today’s filing of suit, BPD and BRIC have failed to produce the requested documents, even though the law requires all public records requests to be fulfilled within 10 days.”
“A startling lack of police preparation for a march of known fascists led to far more than terrifying people in the streets; it resulted in a violent assault of a bystander, an African American man who required hospitalization for his injuries,” said Jonathan D. Messinger, lawsuit co-Counsel.
“The NLG-Mass Chapter is forced to file this lawsuit because of the BPD’s and BRIC’s refusal to release documents that would explain what the BPD and BRIC knew, or should have known, about the march and what led to their absence at the scene,” said co-Counsel Lee Goldstein.
“When BPD and BRIC actively obstruct the public’s right to police transparency,” added Chris DiOrio, an attorney with the NLG Litigation Committee, “their accountability is undermined and compromised. This is not the first time these entities have obstructed public access to their records. The NLG is hopeful suits like this and others will force these entities to comply with the law.”
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