What I find most interesting about the story is not the establishment of the police review board, but rather the parameters under which it is created and operates. See this table from the Globe comparing police review boards in Boston and Atlanta, two cities which have recently established them:
Some people may be criticizing the police control of the process of this review board, but what I see is Mayoral control all over the place -- appointing all the members, having them report annually directly to him, and the right of the Mayor to unilaterally terminate the board altogether.
That's not accountability; it's Mayoral meddling. Let's have a police review board with the independence to pursue cases of misconduct reasonably without having to worry about getting canned by the Mayor if he doesn't like what they're doing.
