BOSTON — A Boston police officer has been charged with trying to intimidate an internal affairs investigator looking into whether he was in violation of the department’s residency requirement, prosecutors said Monday.
Officer Matthew Morrissey pleaded not guilty in court to a witness intimidation charge and was released on personal recognizance, according to a statement from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden.
According to authorities, Morrissey had been under investigation by the department’s Bureau of Professional Standards since October and had been placed on administrative leave Saturday for alleged violations of the residency requirement.
Morrissey went to the investigator’s home at about 1:40 a.m. Sunday, blocked access to the house with his truck, rolled down his window and stared silently at the fellow officer through a glass door for about a minute and a half, prosecutors said.
“Conduct such as this will not be accepted or ignored by the Boston Police Department,” Superintendent-in-Chief and acting Commissioner Gregory Long said in a statement posted on the department’s website. “Our officers take an oath to uphold the law and will be held accountable to that very oath.”
Morrissey’s lawyer called the incident “overblown.”
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