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Sunday, July 18, 1993 Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: O’BOYLE CASE
Delve deeper into O’Boyle case
Maybe I spoke to him on the street. Maybe I noticed him drunk in the
parkMaybe could be James O’Boyle’s middle name.
Maybe he’d be alive today had he not crawled into a bottle and refused to
come out. Maybe he’d be breathing among the city’s legion of lost souls had he
been stronger. Maybe he’d still be our neighbor had he been smarter, wealthier
and more in control.
One thing I know for sure, though.
James O’Boyle’s dead.
And the only public legacy to his passing is a lawsuit that few people care
enough about.
Even people on the block where the events leading to his death began are
not sure about the details. Yesterday morning, a woman running a vacuum
cleaner in a store in the 200 block of South Main Street said O’Boyle fell in
the parking lot across the street.
“Over there,” she said, pointing west.
Over there, however, the guys working in the newsstand pointed east, back
to the parking lot on the other side of the store where the woman was cleaning
the rug.
“Where’s the pipe that the cops say O’Boyle hit his head on when he fell?”
I asked.
“It’s gone,” one man said. “They’ve paved it over a long time ago. The
pipe’s long gone.”
The most famous pipe in the history of Wilkes-Bare makes for an odd
instrument of death.
And, it’s only one reason why some people aren’t buying the official
version of the final hours of James O’Boyle.
They say that pipe was mere prelude to murder.
Some people believe a police night stick killed O’Boyle, according to a
source close to the case, and not a drunken fall.
Even some officers within the police department have said privately that
they believe their fellow officers may have gone too far.
ttorneys for O’Boyle’s family have accused city police of beating O’Boyle
to death as he lay in a holding cell in police headquarters, where police had
taken him after he caused a disturbance at Mercy Hospital.
O’Boyle was at the hospital to be treated for the injuries witnesses claim
he brought on himself in the downtown parking lot.
Then, attorneys claim, city and county law enforcement officials covered up
the crime committed by one of their own.
I’ve been thinking a lot about O’Boyle lately.
And, despite his central role in the drama and the tragedy of his passing,
right now this story is less about him than it is about the rest of us.
Are we so jaded that we just accept whatever those who wield power in
society tell us? Or, do we cry out for documentation for every single action
and inaction surrounding O’Boyle’s death and its subsequent aftermath of
mystery?
Two defense lawyers have accused police, the mayor, the district attorney
and the coroner of major crimes.
Are they guilty?
Or, have two lawyers gone too far, maliciously slurring the reputations and
damaging the credibility of good people upon whom we depend for our safety and
security?
Is this just a lawyer’s game?
Or, is it a classic case of police brutality?
Following an investigation, the FBI has apparently cleared officials of
violating O’Boyle’s civil rights. Other than the lawsuit, which could be
settled out of court, this effectively ends official scrutiny unless federal
officials reconsider and convene a grand jury.
Because FBI reports are confidential, there’s no way to tell what agents
found out.
The Justice Department should reconsider.
Issue subpoenas, take sworn testimony and call witness after witness under
threat of perjury until we have a better understanding of how O’Boyle died and
what happened after he did.
Unless indictments are handed up, the results will still remain an official
secret.
But we have to trust somebody, don’t we?
Steve Corbett’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.