Dear Ms District Attorney…

Editorial by Cam G., Co-Founder and Executive Director of Live Boston 617 Inc.

Dear Ms District Attorney,

“Rachael Rollins vows no more bail on gun charges after Roxbury man charged in murder while out on bail”… that headline from the Boston Herald came across my timeline late last night and it hit home with me after covering what has been one of the bloodiest summers in recent Boston history.

No more bail on gun charges.

Many may celebrate this as a win for communities plagued by violence or by law enforcement who have been at the forefront of the outcry against the seemingly daily release of violent offenders by Commonwealth Judges with the support of the DA’s office. But I do not. There should have never been bail for these criminals in the first place.

I see this as a failed administration finally admitting to what many of us have been saying all along. You can not be soft on crime and be a successful District Attorney. Ms Rollins, you seem to love to preach about accountability and civilian review for police, well Ma’am, you and your policies have killed more Suffolk County Citizens than any of the police officers in this county have since you took office. Those same Officers you and your office willingly and happily vilify and undermine on a daily basis, Officers who put their lives on the line every day just to have you dismiss and plea out cases that could clean up the communities of color and communities of poverty you pretend to care so much about. Ms Rollins, how dare you wear that Boston Police Homicide jacket, those are intended for the dedicated Detectives who investigate the horrific murders, not those whom are responsible. You are not fooling anyone with such a disrespectful stunt.

This story could simply be titled: When Policy and Reality Collide: a Story About a Suffolk County DA Who Put Politics Over the Safety of Her Own Community. You ma’am have the blood of many on your hands. Every killing is one too many, but every killing at the hands of a person who should have already been imprisoned, who you should have made sure was imprisoned, is just unacceptable. Convincing yourself that pandering to a reality that could only be realized in a utopia has caused more harm than good. The visceral screams of every mother on her knees behind crime scene tape asking god not to take her baby should be replaced by the unified voices of Suffolk county outside your office demanding you vacate your position and end your social experiment that is causing irreparable damage to our community.

So I ask you Ma’am, what would your civilian review board find as your penance? Maybe you should forfeit the salary of a job you failed to do, and put it towards burying the loved one of the broken families you created, maybe you admit, openly and plainly that you are wrong and let the marginalized and villainized brothers and sisters in Blue clean up this mess you created. As for my civilian review, I think it’s high time you resign.

May your victims Rest In Peace and their families find solace…

Respectfully,

A Witness to Your Carnage