What he did during this interview was bad:
Quotes:
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Article:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/alex-morse-richard-neal-congress-massachusetts
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"The 12-year-old" was one of the people who was running away, frightened by gun shots. He had helped to save the life of a suicidal adult who had a gun. He was a courageous, generous, mature, decent human being and a hero. Not only did he suffer physical injuries from being attacked by police officers, he has had trauma from the incident, which anyone would have.
One of the things that Mayor Morse has learned while in office is how to be manipulative. He should take some time away from politics and the media to unlearn that, to be re-acquainted with regular life and to develop workplace knowledge in other capacities. If he runs for office again later, hopefully he will do so with a less malleable framework for the meaning of integrity.
If he decides that life away from the glare is more authentic and allows for far more happiness, he'll be among a lot of other people who feel that way.
Here's an article from January 2020, that gives a more accurate description of the incident:
https://www.gazettenet.com/Holyoke-City-Council-to-discuss-settlement-of-2014-police-brutality-case-31854456
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Nobody can accuse that article of being biased; it predates both the public discussion of Mayor Morse's behavior and the murder of George Floyd.
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Here's Mayor Morse in the Jacobin article, continuing to blame everyone other than himself:
"Qualified immunity" is a hot topic right now, so that's what he's blaming, although nothing stopped him in previous paragraphs in the same interview from accusing the Boston Globe reporter of bias, accusing the victim's lawyer of exaggeration, and giving a vivid description of the incident which implied that the 12-year-old could reasonably have been mistaken as posing a threat. The kid was beaten until he passed out, and no amount of money can make up for it. $65,000 is insulting, as is the term of settlement which made the family accept no admission of wrongdoing by the police.
The incident was in 2014. The lawsuit was filed in 2017. The police chief retired in 2018 and was replaced with a Latino police chief. I think it's safe to say that Mayor Morse had no idea what was going on in the Holyoke Police Department until the lawsuit was filed.
From the Jacobin article:
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By "not a single officer has had to fire a shot," did Mayor Morse mean "because the police department had tasers?"
From Google:
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My feeling is that, as long as Justice Stevens' opinion that the 2nd Amendment should be repealed isn't the prevailing, political opinion, police need guns because people who aren't police officers have guns. A taser is no defense against a gun. However, it is still a weapon, which can be used quite sadistically at close range, as I saw in a heartrending video in which a police officer deliberately placed a taser on a pregnant, black woman's stomach. That wasn't in Massachusetts.
You can hire and fire anyone whom you want, creating as many impressive numbers as you can. If you are incapable of taking personal responsibility, you should not be an elected official.
At the time that I'm writing this article, Mayor Morse is maintaining silence at his Twitter account. I'm sorry to have brought these issues up, but some of the reporters who wanted to get him elected are continuing to portray him as a martyr, and he is not a martyr. It is also not appropriate for political organizations to use his situation as a basis for planning campaign strategy or to use him in future campaigns as an example of someone who lost a race because of "smears," rather than because of his behavior.