Globe's "Juice"-y Story

Published Mar 12 2008, 03:01 PM by David S. Bernstein

The Boston Globe has a big front-page scoop today about the Feds closing in on more Boston police officers in the Roberto Pulido scandal -- well, not so much scoop as following up on what I wrote in last week's Phoenix. (Go to the bottom three paragraphs.)

The Globe report focuses only on charges of steroid use, which may indeed be what the current grand jury is looking at. But there is much more than that.

Commissioner Ed Davis declined to comment to the Globe, but what he told me was, to my mind, extraordinary:

“When all is said and done, the cancer that was growing within the Boston Police Department will be removed.”

That's a public official conceding that there's a cancer in the department. Ouch.

As to the steroids, there's been little question that the Pulido investigation would lead to cops getting in trouble; it has not been clear (until this Globe story) that the steroid buys would lead to criminal charges.

The Feds have Pulido, in photos and audiotapes, selling steroids on at least six different occasions in 2005. Specifically, the goodies included testosterone, deca, sustanon, winstrol stanozolol ("winnies"), and somatropin/nordtropin (growth hormones). Oh, and syringes. It's been not much of a secret that the buyers include other cops. (They also have Pulido selling identities on at least 20 different occasions in '05 and '06, a steady operation which likely involved other officers and/or state employees. Then there are all the BPD guests at Pulido's monthly debauchery gatherings, and lord knows what else.)

Once the identities of the steroid-buying officers becomes public, the city is likely to get hit with a heavy round of litigation from citizens whose claims to have been roughed up by those cops were ignored; those claims will look very different, in retrospect, when juiced-up cops were involved.

The department has long turned a blind eye to steroid use. It's going to cost them at the least in the public trust, and perhaps in the taxpayer's wallet.