By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff
The lieutenant who heads the detectives assigned to Boston police’s B-2 district and two detective sergeants have been reprimanded for the handling of a case last year against Edwin Alemany, the man charged with the murder this July of Amy Lord, Boston police said.
Detective Jerome Hall-Brewster had already been reassigned to patrol duties for his handling of the case.
Lieutenant Detective Patrick Cullity has been issued a written reprimand and Sergeant Detectives Timothy Horan and Thomas O’Leary, both of whom had direct command over Hall-Brewster, have been issued oral reprimands for failing to ensure the case was properly investigated, police said this afternoon in a statement.
Cullity has also been ordered to attend management training, the statement said, noting that none of the supervisors had any prior disciplinary history.
“While the investigation showed supervisors initially provided Hall-Brewster with investigative guidance, the case subsequently was not properly tracked and all possible investigative steps were not taken,” police said.
The department also said that a number of “system enhancements” had been implemented.
Hall-Brewster was demoted this summer after an internal investigation determined that he had failed to follow up on a September 2012 assault on a woman in Roxbury. That failure was starkly highlighted when Alemany, suspected in the Roxbury assault, was charged in the July 23 abduction and murder of 24-year-old Amy Lord.
The internal affairs probe found that Hall-Brewster incorrectly concluded that he lacked probable cause to arrest Alemany in the 2012 case, even though Alemany’s wallet was found at the site of the attack.
Alemany remains a “person of interest” in the 2012 case, which is under active investigation, the statement said today.
Today’s statement noted that Hall-Brewster had also previously been the subject of another “internal affairs matter where similarly he failed to properly ensure a thorough investigation.”
The nightmare story of Lord’s murder — a young woman kidnapped by a stranger in South Boston in the early morning hours of a summer day, forced to drive to ATMs to withdraw money, and beaten, stabbed, and strangled — shocked the city.
Alemany, who had a long history of serious mental health issues, was allegedly on a violent rampage: He also faces charges of attacking two other women in the 20-hour window around Lord’s killing.
When Hall-Brewster was initially disciplined and no superior officers were, the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers was critical.
Larry Ellison, president of the organization, today decried the disparity between the discipline meted out today to Hall-Brewster’s bosses as too light.
“I’m beyond outraged. It’s a double standard here,” he said, noting that the supervisors who were reprimanded are white and Hall-Brewster is black. “The supervisors got a slap on the wrist and Detective Hall-Brewster lost his rating. The supervisors were supposed to be supervising — why didn’t they lose their rating?”
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