“Having grown up here, having served in all roles within the department and elsewhere, he is uniquely positioned to build the public safety infrastructure Boston deserves and continue to build on the community trust and community policing that has led our city for decades. Wu said. Cox, who left Boston in 2019 to become police chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called the appointment “a homecoming.” He also echoed Mayor Wu’s vision for emphasizing the relationship between the police department and the Boston community. “The police department needs to look like the communities we serve … so we can serve you better,” Cox said. “We’re going to re-emphasize and go back to some of the fundamentals of community policing that we’ve been very good at in the past and make sure we start to implement that again.” During his 1995 undercover work for the gang unit, Cox, who is black, was mistaken for a suspect by other Boston police officers and severely beaten. He told WBZ-TV in a 2020 interview that the police department tried to cover up what happened to him at the time. He ended up bringing a successful civil suit against the department. On Wednesday, Cox called that 1995 incident “unconstitutional policing probably no different than cases that have happened across the country to black and brown people in general.” He said he chose to stay at the police station after what happened “to make sure something like this never happens again.” And Boston officers will work hard to understand the people and communities they serve, Cox said. “We’re going to get to know the cultures of all the people we serve to make sure we have, we never make a mistake and we don’t confuse someone’s culture with behavior that is considered criminal in some way, shape or form,” Cox said. “We have to understand the people we police and the communities we police. That way we never have unintended consequences.” Cox will start as Commissioner on August 15. CNN’s Rob Frehse contributed to this report.
