The Fence

by Lehr, Dick

• ISBN13: 9780060780999
• ISBN10: 0060780991
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1900-01-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew soon after that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved he was not a black gang member but a plainclothes cop chasing the same murder suspect his assailants were. Officer Kenny Conley, who pursued and apprehended the suspect while Cox was being beaten, was then wrongfully convicted by federal prosecutors of lying when he denied witnessing the attack on his brother officer. Both Cox and Conley were native Bostonians, each dedicating his life to service with the Boston Police Department. But when they needed its support, they were heartlessly and ruthlessly abandoned. A remarkable work of investigative journalism, "The Fence" tells the shocking true story of the attack and its aftermath--and exposes the lies and injustice hidden behind a "blue wall of silence."

Author Biography

As a reporter for nearly two decades for the Boston Globe, Dick Lehr won numerous journalism awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is a professor of journalism at Boston University.

Table of Contents

The Cast of Characters	p. xiii
Map of Boston	p. xv
Prologue: January 25, 1995	p. 1
Two cops and a Drug Dealer
Mike Cox	p. 7
Robert "Smut" Brown	p. 29
Kenny Conley	p. 45
The Troubled Boston PD	p. 64
Mike's Early Police Career	p. 78
Closing Time at the Cortee's	p. 93
The Murder and the Chase	p. 102
The Dead End	p. 123
True Blue
"8-Boy"	p. 139
No Official Complaint	p. 158
Can I Talk to My Lawyer?	p. 176
Dave, I Know You Know Something	p. 197
Cox v. Boston Police Department	p. 213
Justice Denied, Then the Trial
The White Guy at the Fence	p. 227
The Perjury Trap	p. 248
A Federal Miscarriage of Justice	p. 260
On His Own	p. 272
The Trial	p. 293
Epilogue	p. 321
Acknowledgments	p. 331
Author's Note on Sources	p. 335
Notes	p. 337
Court Cases	p. 361
Books; Articles and Special Reports	p. 363
Boston Police Department Rules and Regulations
Boston Police Department Internal Investigations
Boston Police Department Labor Arbitration Proceedings
Suffolk County District Attorney's Office
United States Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts	p. 365
Index	p. 369
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