Lawrence police opted to escalate a vehicle stop to the point of threatening to use potentially lethal force (while endangering bystanders and other officers) rather than identify themselves, then violently arrested and refused to provide medical aid for the victim of their aggression.
Read MoreOff-duty Boston cop chases down pedestrian in road rage attack
Off duty Boston police officer chases down and attacks pedestrian in a road rage incident then hauls him away claiming he is under arrest. Luckily a passerby recorded the interaction.
Read MoreTHE SECRETARY OF SECRECY, PART III
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin testimony shows that his office doesn't care about its responsibility to uphold the state's public records law.
Read MoreThe Pitts
While looking into the violent arrest of an 88 year old woman (an event the Pittsfield police say will taint their department's reputation for years) we accidentally discovered that the Pittsfield police had lost evidence in an unknown number of cases without telling anyone. We made Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless aware of the loss, but his office also failed to notify anyone.
Read MoreMASSACHUSETTS: WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE
In the Commonwealth, even paying for public records doesn’t guarantee you’ll get them.
Read MoreQuincy police lies matter
The Quincy police have been lying for almost a year and a half to bury a minor police report about a local celebrity peeing in public.
Read MoreWHERE’S MAURA?
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is more likely to break the state's public records law than to enforce it.
Read MoreFOIA-BLES Critical Mass records reform bill takes two steps forward and one step back
The Massachusetts state Senate unveiled their version of a bill to update the decrepit public records law. Their bill offers some hope to reporters and transparency advocates, but not much.
Read MoreFall River reaches $72,500 settlement with man arrested for recording cop
After two long years, Fall River has finally settled with a man wrongly arrested for recording police.
Read MoreTHE SECRETARY OF SECRECY
Broken Records is a column about public records access in Massachusetts. In this, our first, column we explore William Galvin's role in making a mess out of Massachusetts records access, and we discuss the push to to reform the law. We also look at the recent Boston Globe survey of town responses to records requests that found that Massachusetts is failing, which is exactly what all the other surveys found.
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