The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide by Dick Lehr Page B

to the guys coming off duty to see what kind of night it had been. That’s when he learned he was without his regular partner, Danny McDonald, who was out on an injury and not available for duty.
    Kenny wasn’t all that surprised. McDonald had injured his knee the night before while the two worked an anti-crime unit—the Delta K–1 car—patrolling the district in an unmarked cruiser looking for trouble: drug dealing, prostitution, crimes in progress. “You’re out there hunting,” Kenny said. The anti-crime cars were considered more pro-active than the “service units” that were directed by a dispatcher to respond to calls for police assistance, ranging from a disabled vehicle to more serious crimes.
    The anti-crime units were also different from the police department’s elite units that also worked in street clothes. Kenny patrolled only in his district, known as Area D–4, which covered parts of the South End, Back Bay, and Fenway neighborhoods. Officers assigned to either the drug unit or the Anti–Gang Violence Unit—such as Mike Cox and Craig Jones—had citywide jurisdiction and were free to roam.
    The night before, Kenny and McDonald had driven slowly down one of the narrow alleys running behind the townhouses and red-brick buildings that made up the Back Bay, the historic neighborhood that was home to a mix of students, young professionals, and the well-heeled. Kenny was driving when they noticed a car ahead of them, occupied and idling. They watched as two men approached the car, textbook “suspicious activity” for that hour of the night. The officers ran the car’s plate. When it came back as a stolen vehicle, McDonald opened the cruiser’s door, climbed out, and began walking to the car. That’s when the car lurched forward. Instantly, Kenny hit the gas pedal and looped around to cut the car off. Other police units responded in time to catch the two men who fled on foot. The suspects were taken into custody, while McDonald was taken for treatment. He’d been hit in the knee by the lurching car and would eventually undergo surgery to repair the ligament damage.
    Kenny learned during roll call that McDonald would be out. His supervisor asked whom he’d like to work with that night in the Delta K–1 car. Kenny looked around the guardroom full of officers ready to go on duty. He spotted Bobby Dwan. He’d never worked with Dwan before, but they were friendly. Bobby had come onto the force in 1990, a year before Kenny did. He was a second lieutenant in the National Guard who had served for six months in the Gulf War in 1991 as a platoon leader in the military police. Like Kenny, Bobby was from Boston, although Bobby grew up in Mattapan on the opposite side of the city from Kenny’s South Boston. Bobby was a jock; he was a three-sport varsity athlete in high school—football, hockey, and baseball—and played center for the first line on the police department’s hockey team. He was married, with a baby girl and another due any day now, and he lived just outside the city. There was no pretense about Bobby—nothing fancy and no bull—and Kenny liked that.
    How about Bobby Dwan? Kenny told the supervisor.
    It was done.
    Bobby had been scheduled to work a one-person service unit, so he had to run to his locker and change back into the clothes he’d worn to work—blue jeans, sneakers, and the L. L. Bean barn jacket with the green corduroy collar his wife had bought as a gift. He joined Kenny, who already was set to go—dressed in jeans, sneakers, a black turtleneck, an off-white Carhartt jacket, and a corduroy baseball hat with a shamrock on it.
    They headed out to the Delta K–1 anti-crime car. Side by side, they were an odd couple: Kenny towered at six-four and weighed 215 pounds, while Bobby was five-three and barely topped 150 pounds. In the city, the big news at the time was the nationwide manhunt for Boston’s most famous gangster, James J. “Whitey” Bulger. Under investigation for