Video: Massachusetts State Police Trooper's Taser Used Against Him by City Employee

By Gayla Cawley

Source Boston Herald

The Boston City Council advanced an emergency order and will hold a hearing focused on ways to reform the city’s hiring practices in light of a slew of municipal employee arrests on violence-related charges and questionable background checks.

The three councilors who introduced the order Wednesday mentioned the shocking revelations that a Level 3 sex offender had been working in the family-friendly parks department for most of this past year and the city employee whose violent encounter with a state trooper was caught on video had a lengthy rap sheet with an assault to murder conviction, as proof that hiring reforms are needed at City Hall.

“I’m filing this emergency hearing order today calling for immediate reforms to the City of Boston’s hiring and employee review processes,” Councilor Erin Murphy, who co-sponsored the measure, said at the meeting. “This action comes after multiple troubling incidents involving city employees, including violent confrontations and the shocking case of a Level 3 sex offender employed in our parks department.

“These failures highlight unacceptable gaps in background checks, sex offender screening and continuous monitoring,” Murphy added.

Murphy said the order she’s filed calls for “urgent reforms,” including mandatory Sex Offender Registry Board and Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI, checks for all hires, stronger standards for jobs involving children, seniors and vulnerable residents, annual rechecks and real-time alerts for new arrests, and “immediate suspension when credible allegations arise.”

Murphy, along with Councilors Ed Flynn and John FitzGerald, were given the go-ahead to introduce the late-file hearing order at Wednesday’s meeting, on the heels of a city employee arrest that involved a violent encounter with a State Police trooper who had been conducting a routine traffic stop in South Boston.

Trooper's Taser used against him by city property management employee

While the arrest of 25-year-old property management employee Nasiru Ibrahim occurred on July 30, it didn’t come to light until last Friday, when the encounter, captured on the trooper’s body cam and cruiser dash cam, was first reported by WCVB–TV, and has since been reported by the Herald and other media outlets.

Ibrahim is alleged to have tased the state trooper, who had been forced to drop his weapon after diving head-first into the city employee’s vehicle to prevent him from driving off to flee the traffic stop. Ibrahim had been repeatedly trying to put the vehicle in drive with the trooper’s body halfway into the vehicle, while the trooper was trying to put it into park, the police report states.

After the arrest of Ibrahim was made following the struggle, a handgun with a Glock switch that could convert it to a fully automatic machine gun was found wrapped in a sweatshirt that Ibrahim had allegedly been sitting on during the traffic stop. Ibrahim does not have a license to carry in the state, per the police report.

“The city employee allegedly has a seven-page criminal record, including convictions for assault to murder, charges that led to a five-year prison sentence,” Flynn said. “This is not the first incident. We have to change the hiring process protocols here in the City of Boston. I’m not comfortable with how we’re conducting CORIs and background checks on new city hires (and) potential hires.

“I do believe there’s a systemwide breakdown,” Flynn added. “We need to address it and provide the residents of Boston with an exceptional workforce, and that includes background checks on new hires. We owe that to the residents of Boston.”

Flynn said that while he supports the Wu administration’s reentry services, which provide ex-convicts with a pathway to jobs at City Hall, he “can’t support the status quo,” as it relates to today’s hiring practices.

“Public safety can’t be an afterthought in Boston’s HR hiring processes,” he added.

FitzGerald referenced the mayor’s hire of a registered Level 3 sex offender, as an example of “things that have slipped through the cracks,” as it relates to city hiring practices.

Parks department employee listed as sex offender

As first reported by the Herald, Robert M. Claud, 37, of Dorchester, worked as a heavy motor equipment operator and laborer for the family-oriented parks department for most of this past year, until his employment ended on Aug. 12.

Claud is listed as a Level 3 sex offender — the most dangerous level — on the Sex Offender Registry Board, with two convictions for indecent assault and battery on a child and one conviction for open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior.

“In the instance of the Level 3 sex offender, I know that that individual lived down the street from my own house and my own children, and so I know how that made me and my family feel,” FitzGerald said. “I imagine if there are other folks that learn of that news, that they might have the same sort of fears. So we just want to make sure that these (city hiring) processes are always improved and will be continuously looked at, nothing more than that.”

Councilor Sharon Durkan said she supports having a conversation move forward on city hiring practices, but cautioned against having the hearing focus on individual employees or specific incidents, as the Council has been advised in the past to steer clear of wading into city personnel matters.

“I just want to make sure that we’re not having these conversations in silos,” Durkan said, referencing comments at the meeting that focused on specific employee incidents. “I don’t think this is really getting at the core of this. It’s about, with thousands of employees, how can we ensure that every single one of them is meeting the standard and criteria that we want every city worker to maintain?”

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