Revere Mayor Taking His Time: Revere Police Sergeant's Fate Undecided

Sergeant Evan Franklin (Christopher King Blogspot)

It has been more than a week since Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino stated that he would make his decision by this past week regarding Sergeant Evan Franklin's fate with the Revere Police Department. The decision comes following Franklin's behavior after the shooting of Daniel Talbot. On top of that, it has been three weeks since Revere Police Chief Terence K. Reardon sent a letter to the mayor suggesting that Franklin be fired (the chief would do it himself, but city bylaws state that only the mayor can terminate the employment of a police officer, the harshest punishment that the chief can dole out is a five day, unpaid suspension which he has already given Franklin.)

For those of you out of the loop, you can catch up here, and I would also suggest checking out KingCast's First Amendment page, as well, as he has been following the story as well. To make a long story short, Sergeant Evan Franklin, after leaving his department-issued firearm in the backseat of his colleague's unlocked car earlier in the evening, fled the scene of the shooting right after shots rang out. To make matter worse, Franklin flagged down an on-duty Revere cop, not to alert him to the fact that one of his colleagues had been shot, but to be driven home. When asked if everything was OK, Franklin replied in the affirmative.

Franklin got home, never called the police to let them know what happened, and then lied about his presence at the scene to State Police investigators. He has been on paid administrative leave since September 29, 2007. Chief Reardon recently suspended him for five days without pay, which Franklin thought was excessive and is fighting. He is also fighting his chief's dismissal suggestion (which he did by hiring business lawyer Neil Rossman.)

Given Franklin's actions, however, it seems that a dismissal would be a lucky outcome. Of course, this is not all of Franklin's story. Franklin resigned from the force two weeks before graduating from the police academy for his involvement in a hit and run with another cadet in 1995. Franklin re-joined the force in 1997 after going through the academy again (the man Franklin was with, Todd Randall, is now a patrolman.) So Franklin running from a scene is not a freak occurrence; he has a history of this.

Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino (Boston Globe)

So my question is this: what is taking Mayor Thomas Ambrosino so long? Is it really that hard of a decision? Let's assume that Ambrosino allows Franklin to stay on the force. Who the hell is going to want to partner up with him? Would anyone feel safe with Franklin as the person who is supposed to have their back on the beat? Additionally, if Ambrosino keeps Franklin on the force, what does this say to anyone who does this type of stuff? Is this behavior that, not only the mayor's office, but the people of Revere are going to tolerate? Is this acceptable behavior of a police officer who already has a tainted record? Is there something Ambrosino knows that we do not?

Everything about these procedures have been public - Chief Reardon's letter and the hearing about Franklin's fate. The facts that the news outlets have reported are (supposedly) all of the facts involving Franklin's involvement with this incident. Given these facts, the decision should be simple: Sergeant Evan Franklin should not be a police officer in Revere or elsewhere.

Officer at the Scene of Daniel Talbot's Murder Faces Dismissal

Officer Daniel Talbot (My Fox Boston)

More Daniel Talbot news coming out of Revere. It was reported today that the ranking officer on the scene of the Talbot murder last September faces dismissal from the force due to his behavior. As I reported back in November, it was determined that Sergeant Evan Franklin of the Revere Police Department was on the scene when Officer Talbot and his posse got into a verbal altercation with Derek Lodie, who allegedly called up Robert Iacoviello, Jr. who came upon the scene. Then, according to Franklin's lawyer, the group of officers approached Lodie and Iacoviello anticipating a fistfight. Talbot was hit in the head and died a day later, while no one else was hit and the police officers who returned fire (Officers Soto and Bruzzese) were unable to hit the shooter. Numerous questions about this case remain unanswered, but if Sergeant Franklin's behavior is any indication, something is not right about this entire situation.

In a scalding letter, Revere Police Chief Terence K. Reardon lays out Franklin's conduct that night and why he should no longer be a police officer. The story goes as follows: Once the shooting started and Officers Soto and Bruzzese returned fire, Franklin bolted from the scene. Reardon says that Franklin ran "a considerable distance from the scene," and came upon on-duty officer Robert Impemba. Franklin, being a sergeant, ordered Impemba to drive him home (apparently Franklin was so drunk that Impemba had to help him out of the back seat of the cruiser). When Impemba asked Franklin if everything was OK, Franklin lied and said yes. The lies continued, as Franklin, who neglected to let the department know that an officer had been shot, lied to State Troopers about how he got home and that he did not know that someone had been shot.

Sergeant Evan Franklin (Christopher King Blog)

Now Franklin's lawyer, Neil Rossman, claims that one of the reasons that Franklin did not stick around was because he was unarmed. Chief Reardon addresses this in his letter, because apparently Franklin left his department-issued handgun in the back of Officer Soto's car, which was unlocked (which violates department rules and state law.) Rossman also said that people should not criticize his client for his behavior because all the officers were drunk and lured into an ambush. So I guess it's official that the officers were drunk. Also, Franklin was the only one to run (even Talbot's fiance, who is not trained in police tactics and was also [assumedly] unarmed appears to have stuck around.) It seems there is little, if anything, that can justify the way that Franklin acted in this situation. Franklin was also chastised by Chief Reardon for not discouraging his comrades from breaking the law by drinking in public (him being the ranking officer). Of course, this is not the first time that Sergeant Evan Franklin has run afoul of the law. According to the Daily Item of Lynn, Franklin and a friend (Todd Randall) were involved in a two-car accident on Route 1 in August of 1995 and fled the scene on foot. The two men were soon to graduate from the police academy, but resigned from the force following the incident. Franklin was re-hired after going through the police academy again in May 1997.

Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino
(Revere Journal)

So where does this leave the case? Well, the ranking officer involved lied about the incident to State Police investigators, which makes me think that something that has not been made public lies beneath the surface of this entire debacle. We still do not know why Talbot and his group argued with Lodie. We still do not know what caused shots to be fired. We also do not know why the officers did not call on-duty (and sober) officers to the scene when they got into an argument with Lodie. It also seems odd that some thug would be able to hit Talbot in the head and escape any bullet wounds from trained officers of the law shooting back. Additionally, the Daily Item's attempt to have the videotape from Revere High public surveillance cameras made public was denied, with the judge in the case saying that because the tape is still being used in a grand jury investigation it cannot be released. I can only assume, then, that the grand jury investigation continues and not all responsible parties have been rounded up (at least to the prosecutor's content), which begs the question: how long will this case be drawn out?

Sergeant Evan Franklin's behavior speaks for itself. It seems ridiculous that he is fighting the fact that his breaking several laws and lying to State Police investigators about an incident in which a fellow police officer was killed warrants his dismissal from the force. He has been getting paid administrative leave since September 29, 2007 (minus the five day unpaid suspension). It looks like he has little to complain about, and I would argue that he has gotten off pretty easy considering what he's done (public drinking, leaving firearms unsecured, lying to investigators, etc.) It will be interesting to see if Revere Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino uses common sense or keeps Franklin on the force. What occurred that night back in September on the property of Revere High School continues to be shrouded in mystery.

Something Just Doesn't Add Up II

Revere Police Officer Daniel Talbot (My Fox Boston)

On September 29, Revere Police Officer Daniel Talbot was shot in the head by unknown assailants who were in their late teens to early twenties. Talbot was not alone, as he was with several other Revere off-duty officers (one report says two other officers another says three.)  Reports also say that his fiancee was with the group as well. The facts of this story are extremely nebulous. According to various Boston media outlets, Talbot and his cop friends were hanging out in the parking lot of Revere High when there was a confrontation with a group of young men. From this point on, the details seem to conflict. Boston.com has reported that an altercation occurred between the officers and a group of young men and that shots rang out, but the website states in a different article that Derek Lodie - the only person being charged in connection with the crime (accessory before the fact) - got into a confrontation with the group of officers (and whoever else was there) and then called his friends on a cell phone, when a second altercation occurred and that's when someone started shooting.

Derek Lodie being led to arraignment (Boston.com)

What's also strange is the brevity with which the DA's office released a report exclaiming that the bullet did not come from one of the other officer's guns. The report was released on Monday, October 1, only two days after the officer's death (less than 48 hours, considering his time of death was around 10pm Saturday). There do not seem to be any reports pointing to any of the officers as suspects before the autopsy results came out, so the rush to have them released seems slightly out of place. Additionally, the DA's office has a suspect in custody - the man who allegedly orchestrated the whole incident - but have charged him with only being an accessory before the fact (which, according to Massachusetts Law, carries the same punishment as the principal felon [aka the shooter] so it is akin to facing the murder charge, just not directly). So that means that Lodie did not pull the trigger, only asked someone to do it for him, which makes little sense because the media does not report that Lodie is part of any gang and at 17 years old, even if he were part of a gang, I doubt he would be such a heavy hitter as to order a hit on a cop and actually have it done, for no reason. I'm not saying he didn't do it, I'm just saying that the charges they are holding him on are strange.

More oddities in the case include the sealing of anything having to do with the case in any way, shape, or form. Additionally, two other people's names keep popping up in the news as to their involvement in the crime, but they have yet to be charged with anything and are simply being held on probation violations and/or seperate charges [included in article last linked to]. Despite Boston.com's report of a lot of gang activity in the area coming from MS-13, it turns out 2 of the 3 arrests so far have been white individuals, and the one identified gang member (a white kid) is of the Bloods street gang, a home-grown violent group.

Suffolk County DA Daniel F. Conley (Wikipedia)

This brings up a lot of questions that have yet to get answered, and may never be. Why were the off-duty cops at the Revere High parking lot at 1:30 am after having been out drinking during the night? One article says that the cops believed their faces would arouse trouble at a bar or on Revere Beach, so they headed to the isolation behind Revere High (trespassing in the process, as well as other crimes if they were drinking). I'm not exactly sure why their faces would cause trouble at places, considering that a fellow officer was quoted at the arriagnment of Lodie as saying "You think you're working and living in a city that's safe and something like this happens." Also, as some posters on web boards have alluded to, just because a department-issued glock was not used does not mean that a cop could not have pulled the trigger (I'm not saying a cop did it, I am raising that as a possibility considering part of the murder weapon was found in a storm drain and thus no one has possession of it anymore, but the DA has already ruled out that a cop was the one who did it). Additionally, reports say that a gun battle ensued, but only Talbot was hit, and in the head no less. So an amateur shot a police officer in the head with a pistol (so it could not have been too far away) and the officers who were there with their service weapons, with which they are trained, were unable to hit any of the assailants? It's one thing if the Revere PD wants to admit that the criminals in their city are better shooters than they are, but I highly doubt that a) they would ever admit that, and b) that the criminals in the city are actually better shooters than them.


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Let me give you two scenarios. The first one would be that what happened is exactly what the prosecutors and investigators are telling us: for whatever reason these off-duty cops (along with Talbot's fiancee and whoever else may have been there - no one is saying) are behind Revere High at 1 am doing whatever it is people do behind public high schools late at night. Lodie comes along, and a verbal argument erupts. Apparently the cops think nothing of it because they did not leave or call any of their fellow on-duty brethren to come over. Lodie calls his boys up, they come down to Revere High armed, get into another argument and start shooting, hitting Talbot in the head once. Talbot's friends shoot back at these kids, somehow missing all of them. Did they chase the kids? Did they get a good look at the kids? Are there sketches of what these kids look like? No one is saying.

The scene after the shooting (Boston.com)

Then there's scenario number two: these cops are at Revere High at 1 am for whatever reason, an argument or something occurs within the group, Talbot is killed by someone in the group with a non-department issued weapon, which they then break down and toss in a storm drain. Then the group comes up with a story involving a "homeless misfit", as the Herald describes him, and a group of his apparently unknown friends. Like something out of a movie.

What do I think happened? I think it's somewhere between the two. I don't think that investigators are giving us the whole story, but I don't think that the second scenario is true, either. I only point out the second scenario to serve as an example of what can be concluded with what little information the investigators are releasing to people. If the first scenario is true, then it is unfair to Officer Talbot and his family to allow so much uncertainty to surround his death. If the story that the investigators are trying to give us is incorrect, then it is unfair to Officer Talbot and his family, as well as the public, to lie about an incident concerning a police officer's death on public property. Hopefully the full story will come out (there's allegedly video footage of what happened directly before the incident, but of course it is not being released) and the people will know the truth.