25 Investigates: Head of Boston office of police transparency calls series of issues ‘unacceptable’

BOSTON — “I think it’s unacceptable and we’re working to fix it,” said Evandro Carvalho, the executive director of Boston’s Office of Police Accountability and Transparency or OPAT, a position he’s held for the last 6 months.

Carvalho addressing members of OPAT’s civilian review board about weeks of reporting by 25 Investigates.

Since October, anchor and investigative reporter, Kerry Kavanaugh has been telling you about its broken website and backlog of civilian complaints.

Wednesday, OPAT met for the first since 25 Investigates reporting began.

Carvalho vowed to get things back on track.

“Certainly, during transition, there’s been some gap. There’s been some challenges as I’ve mentioned, one of which that led to a dashboard being down for some time and that’s not appropriate, right,” he said.

The OPAT website — which promises data on police complaints, arrests, and use of force is a site of broken links. The information is inaccessible to the public. The links to the dashboards haven’t worked since July.

Since then, the city replaced the dead links with a message saying, “We’re currently working to update and improve the dashboards.”

25 Investigates also heard from a woman, Annemarie Grant who says it’s not just the website that’s broken.

“I think that it’s a waste of tax dollars and resources that they’re pouring into this committee for nothing to happen,” Grant told Kavanaugh in early November.

Grant filed a complaint about an interaction with a Boston police officer in November 2023. More than a year later, she still had no resolution.

After 25 Investigates reporting, Grant’s was among 8 complaints finally being reviewed at a hearing on Wednesday.

The city of Boston acknowledged a backlog of civilian complaints as well.

OPAT took no public comment at the Wednesday meeting. And the board went into executive session to review the civilian complaints on the agenda.

That means the public and our camera needed to leave the room.

But before that private session began a board member asked questions about how the group moves forward and whether they will issue an apology for the gap of time.

“I think this is about community engagement. It’s to go in front of the people and say, ‘I’m sorry’ go to the churches and say, “I’m sorry’,” Carvalho said.

During the meeting, Carvahlo introduced a new staff member, who just started last week and will be responsible for the OPAT data. He is tasked with getting the website back up and running. 25 Investigates will let you know when it’s fixed.

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