PAX Centurion - September / October 2013

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • September/October 2013 • Page 31 Unable to make ends meet? Are creditors hounding you? Are you about to lose your home because of debt? Call us today to find out how FILING BANKRUPTCY might be the answer for you. Don Green Law Office of Donald E. Green (A full service law firm) 2235 Washington Street Roxbury, MA 02119 (617) 442-0050 • toll free (877) DON-GREEN As we have over the past 30 years, we offer a discounted fee to police officers Don Green Annette Hill Green salutes our friends of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association 150 Freeport Street Dorchester, MA 02122 Martin Lynch Tel: 617-282-4200 Fax: 617-288-6449 msautobody@aol.com Legal Thoughts: Kenneth H. Anderson, Esq. Byrne & Drechsler, L.L.P., Counsel to Members of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association O ver and over again, I have written in this column about how difficult it must be to be a police officer in this City in this day and age. Only a few months ago, there was a stretch where there were back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back incidents where armed suspects shot at Boston police officers, making this of- fice a chaotic place to be for a three week period of time. Honestly, it seemed like every few days there was another police involved shoot- ing, highlighting the fact that when you interact with someone on the street, you really have no idea what to expect from them. There were foot chases where armed suspects turned and fired at police officers, there were teenagers on corners that fired at plain clothed police of- ficers stopping to investigate them, there was a suspect who refused to exit a car and then came out firing a gun at police officers (all re- corded and narrated on video by bystanders), and another individual who shot at the police as he fled from a crime scene. As I stated at the top of this article, I marvel at the work you all do. Knowing that there may be no rational response from someone you approach, you must approach each situation using your train- ing as a guideline to get you through your interactions with people, changing your approach and your behavior based upon the responses Split second decisions that will be Mondaymorning quarterbacked you get from the people you interact with. The difficulty comes, how- ever, when the people who review your actions cannot agree on how these guidelines should be applied. To highlight the difficulty in fol- lowing the “dos” and the “don’ts” of policing, the case of Common- wealth v. Rosado , 84 Mass. App. Ct. 208 (2013) is a good teacher. In Rosado , a state trooper patrolling in Holyoke made a traffic stop ultimately leading to a drug arrest. A judge in the district court found the trooper’s actions were illegal and suppressed the evidence after the defendant contended that the trooper “(1) impermissibly opened the door to [the suspect’s] vehicle based the observation of an item [the trooper] believed was an illegal weapon, (2) improperly removed the defendant from the vehicle, and (3) used more force than the FourthAmendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights permit in a Terry -type stop.” Id . at 209. The Commonwealth appealed, and two out of the three Massachusetts Appeals Court judges on the panel that heard the case ruled that the stop and everything that followed was legal, while the third judge dissented. When four judges who have hours to examine the fact pattern cannot agree on whether the trooper’s actions were See Split Second on page 32