On Tuesday, documents were released detailing the abuse and cover-up of said abuse carried out by Patrick M. Rose Sr., the former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association and Boston PD detective. Rose has been charged with molesting children, and the documents prove the department knew, and allowed him to continue to serve in their ranks and even engage with children.
The documents are redacted copies of internal affairs investigations into Rose. Boston Mayor Kim Janey’s office said the information was to be released to shed light on the baffling case of how Boston’s top cop was allowed to go on abusing children for decades.
“It is appalling that there was a documented history of alleged child sexual abuse, yet this individual was able to serve out his career as an officer and eventually become the head of the patrolmen’s union for several years,” she said. “Under no circumstance will crimes of this nature be tolerated under my administration, and we will not turn a blind eye to injustices as they arise.”
The evidence surfaced in 1995 when the Boston police department filed a criminal complaint against Rose for sexual assault on a 12-year-old boy. Despite the evidence, Rose managed to get the case against him dropped. An internal affairs investigation would later conclude that Rose indeed committed the crime, however, he kept his badge and remained a cop for the next years — continuing to abuse children over the course of the following two decades.
As MassLive reports, even after Boston Police Department investigators informed then-Commissioner Paul F. Evans in 1996 that there was credible evidence supporting allegations that one of the department’s officers had sexually assaulted a child, that officer was allowed to keep his job, according to the documents.
Hellbound and Down 