Boston Police Department's Transparency Gambit In The Shooting Of Officer Moynihan

In his hospital bed at Boston Medical Center, Officer John Monynihan watched a unique and difficult video. According to The Boston Globe, he saw a surveillance video of the attack that put the 34-year-old officer in intensive care last week.

The video shows what happened last Friday evening. Moynihan makes a traffic stop in Roxbury. The driver, Angelo West, shoots Moynihan in the face. West is killed by other officers as he flees. Given those details, in the age of Ferguson, social media and concerns about police-involved deaths, you can imagine that the situation could have been very volatile.

But Moynihan isn't the only person to have seen the video. On Saturday, less than a day after the shooting, Boston Police Chief Bill Evans decided to show the video to community leaders, in an effort to keep the peace. That's a significant departure from how BPD has handled such shootings in the past. In this case, it seems to have worked. But it raises important questions as well.

Rev. Jeffrey Brown, associate pastor at the Twelfth Baptist Church in Dudley Square, Roxbury. He tweets @RECAP_INTL.

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