Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis spoke out today about controversial comments made in the patrolmen’s union newsletter, which have created a Twitter firestorm.
The controversy started when Simmons College said it would no longer advertise in the Pax Centurion, the newsletter of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association.
The college, which describes itself as a “women-centered, small university,” put an ad in the May/June issue, but said it would no longer advertise after an alumna pointed out controversial comments published in the paper about Democratic senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren. The school said it intended to support the union’s scholarship fund, and it will continue to do so, but not through advertising.
“We weren’t aware of the content and we should have been,” said Allyson Irish, a Simmons spokeswoman. “We have a really long history of commitment to education and diversity and inclusion and once we realized the content of this newsletter was not consistent with those values, we decided to take our advertising elsewhere.”
The comments were made in an a musings article by Officer Jay Moccia. The article titled “Same rodeo … different bull …” criticized Warren and the Occupy movement.
“Maybe your candidate for squaw I mean senator, Liz Warren (your founder) can bake you a cake. I hear she has a whole cookbook full of plagiarized recipes,” the article said. The article also calls her “Miss Prairie Dog.”
Messages left for union officials were not immediately returned.
The newsletter has long been a source of controversial comments, especially aimed at political figures, but the announcement by Simmons spread to the online community and people on Twitter started to call on other advertisers to stop placing ads in the newsletter.
Davis also responded to those taking to Twitter about the content.
“This juvenile conduct is wrong and not rep of today’s officer,” Davis tweeted this morning.
Some of the comments from those on Twitter can be seen below:
[View the story “Twitter users take on BPD union newsletter” on Storify]
