Today, March 27, Massachusetts Coalition of Police and Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, jointly represented by Alan Shapiro and Bryan Decker of Sandulli Grace, filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court to enjoin the Human Resources Division from promoting with banded lists.

The Court set a hearing on the injunction for Tuesday, March 31, at 2:00 p.m. in Suffolk Superior Courthouse, Room 916.

The arguments are essentially the same ones made, and rejected, before the Civil Service Commission.  HRD has a rule saying it establishes lists with “whole numbers.”  We all know that means the scores are supposed to be in a 1-100 format.  If they want to start banding, they have to change their rules.  The legal way to do that is to follow the procedures in the Civil Service law for rule-making. 

We want to thank all of you who have shown your support over these past weeks for our efforts to preserve a merit-based, civil service promotional system for police officers (and, by extension, others) in Massachusetts.

Read the complaint and the memorandum