On January 31, 2009, I was forced off Old Connecticut Path by a
long funeral procession being led by the Framingham police.
Needless to say, I was offended.
I sent an email to our police chief, Steven B. Carl asking several
questions and received a detailed response which was pretty much
what I expected the response to be.
Click on the images to enlargen them.
I'd like to make a few points about this.
- First he claims this is a frivolous request.
Here I have to ask, what is the police doing in the funeral
procession business. They are hired for law enforcement.
They were not hired to be in funeral processions or authorized
by state law to be in such a business. While it may be a
feel-good service, it is not in the purview of law enforcement.
Our police chief uses a rather creative interpetation of
MGL 272-42
to rationalize this side business of the
Framingham police department.
What's to prevent the fire department from getting into this
business? ...besides the police monopoly?
This is like the Parks and Recreation department running their
little day care facility/school
. What are they doing in that
business? Can the Town Clerk also do this? How about DPW?
- If the town provides a service at taxpayers expense, it should
utilized by all taxpayers and not just a very few
taxpayers, but our police chief doesn't really understand this
fundamental concept. He actually believes it's just for a
few select individuals. He should stop treating the taxpayers
in Framingham like a personal ATM machine.
Steven Carl is doing exactly what the Framingham library
did when they closed the library to taxpayers for several
hours so that they could entertain their friends.
- Our police chief has made the effort to write a
don't ask, don't tell sanctuary policy on
illegal immigration.
Thus, he refuses to enforce US immigration law but he is
willing to commit resources on funeral processions. If you
add in all the time the police spend on
police details, it becomes
apparent that his staff seems underemployed and has plenty of
time on their hands.
- Since it is not in the purview of law enforcement, it should
provided as a fee based service should someone request it at
the same hourly rates as any detail assignment. It should not
be free (paid for by the taxpayers).
In this case, the service is being provided for the mother
of a town employee who happens to be a Framingham taxpayer.
I am not sure if the town employee himself (a police officer)
is a Framingham resident and taxpayer.
I should have asked if the service is
provided to town employees who are not residents of Framingham.
I'd like to make sure that Mr. Carl not forget that his
department is funded by Framingham taxpayers and this is
not his money to spend as he so wishes.
In this case, three Framingham officers were involved while
they were being paid to provide law enforcement duties to the
taxpayers.
- I can understand giving the right of way to a funeral procession
even if I don't think too much about the worthiness of funerals,
but being forced off the road by a leapfrogging police
officer (who more than likely increases the probability of an
accident) is rather repugnant and does not fall under the
MGL 272-42
as Mr. Carl states. Taking up both lanes
of a two lane road is simply abuse of police authority here.
Turning on the blue flashing lights in this case does not
create an emergency.
- What I neglected to ask was whether it would be done if the
funeral was far outside of Framingham.... say 20 miles away
or whether its only applicable to funerals within Framingham.
Obviously, any Framingham police authority disappears by the
border. The officers would be removed from Framingham for
quite some time in case a police emergency came up.
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