Busted

After Ortiz went down, Ed Davis joined Lieutenant Detective Frank Mancini, the arresting officer from the anti-corruption unit, in the room where Ortiz was being questioned and booked. For a minute or so, Davis glared at the disgraced cop in his BPD blues. Then he tore the badge off Ortiz's chest, snapping, "You are no longer a Boston police officer. You don't deserve to wear this."

But Davis now admits that Ortiz should have had his badge confiscated long before that day. Prior to his arrest, Ortiz had been suspended from the force six different times, for offenses that included swearing at a commanding officer, lying on police reports, double dipping into overtime, and stealing a sheet from a fellow officer's citation book to write a bothersome neighbor an illegal ticket. Yet for all these violations, Ortiz was never severely punished. The most serious disciplinary action he received was for forging detail slips, for which he got a 70-day unpaid suspension. And even then he served only 20 days.

Worse still, even if everything the FBI says is true, Ortiz is far from the only strike against the BPD, which has seen its reputation sullied by a string of recent scandals: Officer Edgardo Rodriguez pleads guilty to lying to a federal grand jury and distributing steroids. Officer Paul Durkin shoots a cop buddy who tried to take his keys after a night of drinking, and is forced to resign. In January, veteran officer Michael T. Jones is arrested for allegedly robbing a Roslindale gas station at gunpoint. The next month, detective Kevin Guy, a longtime narcotics cop, is hit with a 45-day suspension after testing positive for steroids. Two officers, Windell Josey, who worked with domestic violence victims, and David Murphy, are nabbed by other police departments—one in Randolph and one in Baltimore, Maryland—for allegedly assaulting their girlfriends. At the department's Hyde Park evidence warehouse, a facility only cops are allowed into, a probe finds that drugs from nearly 1,000 cases spanning 16 years have been stolen or improperly discarded.

Now, many law enforcement officials are bracing for the final sentencing hearing for a group of disgraced cops known in the department as "the Three Amigos." All three officers pleaded guilty to drug possession and trafficking charges. One of them, Carlos Pizarro, was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison in December. Another, Nelson Carrasquillo, was sentenced to 18 years last month. According to court documents, the suspected ringleader, Roberto Pulido, was also accused of (though never charged with) involvement in an identity fraud ring and helping to run an illegal after-hours club in Hyde Park, where strippers would perform lap dances for cops in a closed area called "the Boom-Boom Room." He is likely to receive his term in the coming months. Meanwhile, even more sordid revelations may soon emerge. Boston magazine has learned that Pulido's 2002 shooting at the hands of a shadowy assailant will also be reviewed. And the U.S. Attorney's Office has initiated an investigation into allegations of widespread steroid abuse in the BPD.

As the outrages pile up, Ed Davis is struggling to fulfill his pledge to wipe the dirt from the department he took over in 2006. Unfortunately, in Boston, ripping a badge off a corrupt cop is the easy part. Actually getting the cop off the force is something else altogether. In part because of shoddy management, and in part because of a system that makes it exceedingly difficult to eliminate bad seeds, reform efforts start off at a serious disadvantage to entrenched dysfunction. The problems run deep, and by the looks of things, the worst may be yet to come.