>>Valley Patriot>>

Editorial
Patrick Thanks Police

Governor Deval Patrick recently stirred up controversy when he stated on a Boston radio program that he is interested in getting rid of police details on state and local construction sites and replacing them with civilian flagmen. 

If Governor Patrick were to issue an executive order, then only state police officers would be replaced with civilians on state highways  projects. But, if he chose to propose legislation, then all police officers, local and state could be removed from details at local work sites.

Ironic, isn’t it?

When Governor Patrick was running for office, he received endorsements from so many local and state police unions across the Commonwealth. Locally, Patrick received the endorsements of the Essex County Corrections Officers, the Lowell Patrolmen, and the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Superior Officers Union. He also received the endorsements from the Massachusetts Coalition of Police (MassCOP), the International Brotherhood of Correctional Officers and International Brotherhood of Police Officers.  

Now, after receiving these endorsements, Governor Patrick is considering taking away the benefits and overtime police make while doing details.  Massachusetts is the only state that routinely uses  police detail at construction sites. Governor Patrick says that removing these police details will save millions of taxpayer dollars as well as reduce the costs for repairing the state and local infrastructure, including the many state bridges and highways that are need of repair. 

When Deval Patrick was running for Governor last year, we reported that he was “no friend of the police.” (See November 2006 issue “Deval Patrick fought to free cop killer.”)

His past history of defending cop killer Carl Roy Songer is just  one sad example. Songer killed Florida State Trooper Ronald Smith and Patrick, while working as an attorney for the ACLU, fought to have his death sentence commuted. Patrick had also written to the Massachusetts Parole Board on behalf of convicted Leominster rapist Benjamin LaGuer asking for his release.

 It’s too bad that the police unions in Massachusetts endorsed Patrick and did not take his past history seriously or heed The Valley Patriot’s advice that Patrick was no friend to police officers.

We say to police unions around the state that when election time comes around, stop endorsing candidates whom we all know are no friends of victims or the rank and file cops who must deal with the carnage in our streets.

As a notable philosopher once said; “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

We will be watching to see if that is true in the next election.
 

 *Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The November 2007 Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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