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City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson is wrong in so many troubling ways.
Police body camera footage obtained by the Herald through a public records request shows exactly what happened last weekend in the Mass and Cass encampment.
The District 7 councilor, who is up for re-election against four challengers for the Roxbury-based seat, turned to a police officer for help after her Apple iPhone 14 was stolen by someone on that misery Mile.
“I was just taking pictures,” she tells the officer early on. That is the key!
She later denied that first statement saying she was bringing “some food … stuff” to the Mass and Cass inhabitants. So, what is the truth? Her phone was stolen and she had no bag of groceries in her hand, the video shows.
She also told the officer “the password is open” on her stolen phone. If you plan on snapping photos with your new iPhone, that’s the most common way to do it.
But a denizen of the Methadone Mile drilled down closer to the heart of the matter when she said: “Listen, you was going to be taking pictures.”
Nobody expects politicians to tell the truth. They are masters of bending, twisting, and molding matters of the day to fit an agenda. No party holds the higher ground in this arena. They all pivot their politics into the prevailing winds.
The irony of all of this is the police body camera footage is reality TV — warts and all. You see tents and tarps hiding what’s really going on; bicycles and wheelchairs pushed and peddled all over the encampment. There were even two people a few yards apart sweeping up the trash.
The officers say in two separate clips that it “smells horrible here” and “now you know what you’re dealing with.” That last comment was addressed directly to Fernandes Anderson.
The officers know she was in charge of a budget sent to Mayor Michelle Wu that pushed for a $31 million cut to the police force. Wu vetoed that measure along with a cut to veterans’ services.
Fernandes Anderson is an intelligent woman. She oversaw the crafting of the city’s $4.2 billion operating budget. She needs to take ownership of the suggested cuts that the mayor rejected. She should do the same with her Mass and Cass encounter.
Snapping photos of drug addicts and homeless living in squalor in a troubled encampment is not a good idea, but she continues to equivocate. People take offense to their photos being taken, a fact journalists deal with daily.
This city deserves a higher level of honesty in government.
We have police body camera footage, however, to prove the police are professional. The officer who helped Fernandes Anderson was not thrilled — knowing all too well he was about to enter a needle-strewn acre of agony. But he didn’t hesitate.
“Unbelievable,” he says while quickly climbing out of his cruiser and calling for back-up.
No “thank you” was offered up to the officer. It was all about her phone.
Boston police rolled out a body camera pilot program in 2016. Two years later a joint report released by researchers at Northeastern University and the city found that officers who wore body cameras “generate small but meaningful benefits to the civility of police-citizen encounters.”
It’s too bad it doesn’t work both ways.
Body cam snapshot
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