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OPINION: Moving Brookline Juvenile Court cases will hurt us all

Brookline police officers leaving faster than town can replace them

Wicked Local After nearly seven years, Brookline Police Detective Brian Sheehy resigned last month, giving up his title and seniority and relocating to Boston to enter that city’s police academy.  The Brookline Police Department has lost a number of officers to other agencies in recent years, according to union President Michael Keaveney, but never a detective — a position many strive years to attain. Sheehy is among seven officers who have left since July 2020; vacancies officials say could be difficult to fill due to national staffing challenges and concerns within the department. Recruitment struggles Brookline is authorized for 135 officers and there are more than a dozen vacancies, according to Deputy Superintendent Jen Paster, a police spokesperson.

Brookline Police officers' morale at an all-time low, per survey

Frustration. Anxiety. Resignation. Those feelings have haunted Brookline Police Department employees in recent months, as the town – and the nation – reckons with issues of social justice and the role of policing in public safety. The result: Brookline police morale is at an all-time low, according to an anonymous survey of Police Department employees. The Select Board’s Committee on Policing Reforms surveyed more than 100 department employees – more than 53% of the department’s total employees – between Feb. 22 and March 6. “The survey found, unsurprisingly, that morale in the department is very low, with 86% calling morale poor and just 3% good or excellent,” according to the committee’s report.

Brookline candidates grilled on racial justice, policing during forum

Brookline holds public hearing on policing

Wicked Local Asked to weigh in on the differing visions of public safety offered by the Select Board’s Committee on Policing Reforms and the Task Force to Reimagine Policing in Brookline, community members had some ideas of their own. Residents at a public hearing Tuesday shared thoughts on local policing, often endorsing one group’s recommendations over the other and occasionally hurling accusations of bias. The committee and task force have been compared and contrasted from conception, with one setting out to improve the town’s existing policing and the other considering bold changes to the public safety model. Both were convened by the Select Board. 

Brookline@Home: Updates on time well spent

Brookline dives in to police reform discussions

Brookline Police: Crimes up, arrests down amid pandemic

LETTER: Brookline at turning point in response for reform of policing

LETTER: Brookline at turning point in response for reform of policing Wicked Local Brookline is at a critical turning point in its response to the national outcry for reform of policing. As one of several citizen volunteers who devoted months to the work of the Select Board's Committee on Policing Reforms, I have good news. Our work attracted extraordinary volunteer expertise, for example: a former director of Greater Boston Legal Services; a retired District Court judge; a Ph.D. candidate in government at Harvard; a prominent consultant on correctional health and forensic mental health; as well as reform-minded officers, past and present, from within the ranks of the Brookline Police Department.

Brookline's Task Force to Reimagine Policing pitches new agency