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The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide

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The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide

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Overview

“The Fence is a monumental account of an urban travesty. Dick Lehr’s depiction of one of the darkest chapters in recent Boston law enforcement history and the savage injustices perpetrated on two hero cops—one black, one white—has all the earmarks of a classic.” — Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River

The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew soon after that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved he was not a black gang member but a plainclothes cop chasing the same murder suspect his assailants were. Officer Kenny Conley, who pursued and apprehended the suspect while Cox was being beaten, was then wrongfully convicted by federal prosecutors of lying when he denied witnessing the attack on his brother officer. Both Cox and Conley were native Bostonians, each dedicating his life to service with the Boston Police Department. But when they needed its support, they were heartlessly and ruthlessly abandoned.

A remarkable work of investigative journalism, Dick Lehr's The Fence tells the shocking true story of the attack and its aftermath—and exposes the lies and injustice hidden behind a "blue wall of silence."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060780999
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/15/2010
Pages:	383
Sales rank:	443,748
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dick Lehr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is the author of six previous works of nonfiction and a novel for young adults. Lehr coauthored the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award Winning Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil’s Deal, which became the basis of a Warner Bros. film of the same name. His most recent nonfiction book, The Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited The Battle for Civil Rights, became the basis for a PBS/Independent Lens documentary. Two other books were Edgar Award finalists: The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide, and Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind The Dartmouth Murders. Lehr previously wrote for the Boston Globe, where he was a member of the Spotlight Team, a special projects reporter and a magazine writer. While at the Globe he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting and won numerous national and local journalism awards. Lehr lives near Boston.

The Cast of Characters xiii

Map of Boston xv

Prologue: January 25, 1995 1

Part 1 Two cops and a Drug Dealer

1 Mike Cox 7

2 Robert "Smut" Brown 29

3 Kenny Conley 45

4 The Troubled Boston PD 64

5 Mike's Early Police Career 78

6 Closing Time at the Cortee's 93

7 The Murder and the Chase 102

8 The Dead End 123

Part 2 True Blue

9 "8-Boy" 139

10 No Official Complaint 158

11 Can I Talk to My Lawyer? 176

12 Dave, I Know You Know Something 197

13 Cox v. Boston Police Department 213

Part 3 Justice Denied, Then the Trial

14 The White Guy at the Fence 227

15 The Perjury Trap 248

16 A Federal Miscarriage of Justice 260

17 On His Own 272

18 The Trial 293

Epilogue 321

Acknowledgments 331

Author's Note on Sources 335

Notes 337

Appendix A Court Cases 361

Appendix B Books; Articles and Special Reports 363

Appendix C Boston Police Department Rules and Regulations

Boston Police Department Internal Investigations

Boston Police Department Labor Arbitration Proceedings

Suffolk County District Attorney's Office

United States Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts 365

Index 369

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

This could be a case study in the perils of profiling. It isn’t so much forgotten history, as buried. Perhaps this outstanding book can fix that.” — Adrian Walker, Boston Globe
“The Fence is a monumental account of an urban travesty. Dick Lehr’s depiction of one of the darkest chapters in recent Boston law enforcement history and the savage injustices perpetrated on two hero cops—one black, one white—has all the earmarks of a classic.” — Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
“Dick Lehr gets inside the heads of cops, criminals, prosecutors and politics better than anyone I know. The Fence is a revealing expose of the blue wall of silence that endangers us all.” — Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
“Jolting, nightmarish and potent, this true cop yarn bests any bogus reality show or overblown tabloid tale with its hardboiled spin.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“As gripping a tale as “The Fence” is, it should be mandatory reading for anyone looking to be a cop in Boston . . . or anyplace else.” — Peter Gelzinis, Boston Herald
“Think Serpico translated to Boston. . . . A cautionary tale about the abuse of power and a timely civics lesson on the virtue of standing up to authority.” — Kirkus Reviews
“The Fence should be required reading in . . . expanded integrity training courses for Boston Police supervisors.” — Boston Globe
“Intriguing . . . an admirable, in-depth description of police corruption.” — Library Journal
“Gripping. . . . Tackles a broad issue with the zeal of a seasoned investigative newspaper reporter.” — Lynet Holloway, Black Voices
“The Fence makes a compelling case . . . [it] is more than an account of crime, punishment and the blue wall. Lehr weaves the life stories of several key characters into the book.” — Bay State Banner
“Lehr has vividly rendered two tragic stories, exposing a police culture of silence that victimized one of its own while also showing the “by any means necessary’’ mentality of federal prosecutors that destroyed another innocent officer’s reputation. Still missing here are truth and accountability.” — Chuck Leddy, The Boston Globe

From the Publisher

This could be a case study in the perils of profiling. It isn’t so much forgotten history, as buried. Perhaps this outstanding book can fix that.

Adrian Walker

Dick Lehr gets inside the heads of cops, criminals, prosecutors and politics better than anyone I know. The Fence is a revealing expose of the blue wall of silence that endangers us all.

Alan Dershowitz

Gripping. . . . Tackles a broad issue with the zeal of a seasoned investigative newspaper reporter.

Lynet Holloway

The Fence makes a compelling case . . . [it] is more than an account of crime, punishment and the blue wall. Lehr weaves the life stories of several key characters into the book.

Bay State Banner

The Fence should be required reading in . . . expanded integrity training courses for Boston Police supervisors.

Boston Globe

The Fence is a monumental account of an urban travesty. Dick Lehr’s depiction of one of the darkest chapters in recent Boston law enforcement history and the savage injustices perpetrated on two hero cops—one black, one white—has all the earmarks of a classic.

Dennis Lehane

As gripping a tale as “The Fence” is, it should be mandatory reading for anyone looking to be a cop in Boston . . . or anyplace else.

Peter Gelzinis

Lehr has vividly rendered two tragic stories, exposing a police culture of silence that victimized one of its own while also showing the “by any means necessary’’ mentality of federal prosecutors that destroyed another innocent officer’s reputation. Still missing here are truth and accountability.

Chuck Leddy

Mired in the racial conflicts of a divided city, Lehr, coauthor of the bestselling Black Mass, details one of the most controversial cases in the annals of the Boston Police Department, involving a brutal assault on a black plainclothes officer by his fellow cops and the resulting 1998 civil rights trial against the police force. Not only does Lehr paint the racial and political turbulence of Boston at the time, but he explores the cultural backgrounds of the black officer, Michael Cox; his attacker and fellow officer, Kenny Conley; and Robert "Smut" Brown, a drug dealer involved in the killing that started it all. Cox, who responded to the murder and chased after the car carrying the suspects, was beaten very severely by his overzealous colleagues, waited for an administrative apology and got only a coverup by the department. What followed was a sensational trial with all of the key ingredients of police brutality and a "solid blue code of silence," with no winners. Jolting, nightmarish and potent, this true cop yarn bests any bogus reality show or overblown tabloid tale with its hard-boiled spin. 8 pages of b&w photos; 1 map. (July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Far too often we hear about racial bias and undue violence on the part of a city's police department against the very citizens they are legally bound to protect. Here the Boston Police Department is taken to task. Lehr argues that the city of Boston itself has a well-established racial divide and that the police department reflects this partition. He tells the true story of an African American plainclothes police officer, Michael Cox, who was brutally beaten by his fellow officers in a case of mistaken identity. Subsequently, the beating was covered up by the police department, an example of the "Blue Law of Silence" wherein police officers remain silent about police matters that make the department look bad. Lehr provides an excellent review of the incident, the background of Officer Cox, the cover-up, and the ultimate trial. The result is an intriguing read that provides an admirable, in-depth description of police corruption.
—Tim Delaney

Library Journal

From former Boston Globe reporter Lehr (Journalism/Boston Univ.; co-author: Judgment Ridge: The Truth Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders, 2003, etc.), a somber tale of police corruption, racism and violent crime in Beantown. Think Serpico translated to Boston, where Mike Cox, a plainclothes police officer, and his partner were tracking criminals. One, the story's antihero, was a street thug known as "Smut," a 23-year-old with a lengthy police record. Their paths intersected with violent results at a hip-hop club on a January night in 1995. As Lehr notes, "plainclothes" isn't exactly right, for "it was unrealistic to think street-smart gang members would not spot them or their unmarked car." The gangbangers did better than certain of Cox's fellow officers in the Boston PD, who beat him senseless, apparently confusing him for a suspect. The cops, and others who arrived on the scene, concocted a tale: Cox "hit his head on the ice," they said, and they coached witnesses to say the same. None of the officers stepped up to tell the truth, erecting the well-known "blue wall of silence" that surrounds allegations of corruption and misconduct. Higher-ups in the BPD took a nonchalant approach to the case, "hoping the department's low-key response to the beating would result in a quick and quiet resolution that kept the matter largely in-house." To his great credit, Cox would not let it go. Having "realized long ago he could not depend on the police department for the truth," he embarked on a long legal odyssey for justice that resulted in victory-at least of a kind. A cautionary tale about the abuse of power and a timely civics lesson on the virtue of standing up to authority.

Kirkus Reviews

The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide

The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide

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