On the Beat Less than a year after Edward F. Davis ’86 became Boston’s police commissioner in December 2006, an assailant shot and killed 13-year-old Steven Odom in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood as the youngster walked home with friends after playing basketball. The crime shocked the city and led police to speculate that Odom was a victim of mistaken identity. After police investigated for more than a year, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced that Odom’s killer was Charles Bunch Jr., an 18year-old who was murdered 10 days after Odom. He also announced the arrest of 19year-old David Johnson, who allegedly supplied Bunch with the murder weapon.
A Community Commissioner Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis ’86 promotes community policing for crime prevention as well as crime solving. 8 | The Extra Mile | Fall/Winter 2010
Last April, Johnson pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and related charges. Under the terms of a plea bargain approved by Odom’s parents, he was sentenced to six to eight years in prison. Although Bunch’s murder prevented Odom’s shooter from facing charges, the investigation gave the Odom family some justice. That
might not have occurred, Davis said, without the Dorchester community’s help. “People in the neighborhood helped us with descriptions and told us things that, quite frankly, several years before we might not have received simply because they were feeling that the police weren’t really there to assist,” he said. Taking it to the Streets Establishing strong relationships between police and citizens has been a priority for Davis throughout his career. The former Lowell, Mass., police superintendent has been a longtime advocate of community policing, a model that encourages officers to get out of their cruisers and cultivate community bonds. While police engagement with residents can make a difference in solving crimes, community policing has a larger goal. “It’s not arrest and prosecution,” Davis said. “It’s prevention.”