A gritty and riveting, true-life tale of violence, race, and injustice within the ranks of the Boston police department. -- Provided by publisher.

Recognized as the oldest police department in the country, the Boston Police Department has bravely protected and served the Boston community since 1838. Over the years, the department's efforts to keep the public safe have been supported by the many divisions and special units that are prepared to respond to a wide range of public safety issues. Photographs of the harbor patrol unit, mounted unit, K-9 unit, homicide unit, and motorcycle unit take readers "behind the badge" to witness the exciting and sometimes dangerous situations that officers encounter when protecting the Hub. Honoring this great department and the men and women who have served it, Boston Police: Behind the Badge celebrates the long and noteworthy history of the city and department from days long gone by.

Recognized as the oldest police department in the country, the Boston Police Department has bravely protected and served the Boston community since 1838. Over the years, the departments efforts to keep the public safe have been supported by the many divisions and special units that are prepared to respond to a wide range of public safety issues. Photographs of the harbor patrol unit, mounted unit, K-9 unit, homicide unit, and motorcycle unit take readers behind the badge to witness the exciting and sometimes dangerous situations that officers encounter when protecting the Hub. Honoring this great department and the men and women who have served it, Boston Police: Behind the Badge celebrates the long and noteworthy history of the city and department from days long gone by.

The Boston Police Department was formally organized in 1854, but the department traces its origins to the establishment of a night watch of six men and an officer in 1631. At a town meeting in 1701, watchmen were instructed to be "on duty from ten o'clock till broad daylight. . . . They are to go about silently with watch bills, not using any bell, and no watchman to smoke tobacco while walking their rounds; and when they see occasion, to call to persons to take care of their light." Today, the duties of the Boston police officer are supported by advanced forensic technologies and modern equipment. Officers walk neighborhood beats, control local crime, and are ready at a moment's notice to respond to acts of terrorism. Boston Police Department, the first comprehensive photographic history of the department, details one hundred fifty years of crime fighting in Boston. The collection includes images of the 1919 Boston Police Strike; an overview of specialized units, vehicles, uniforms, and equipment; and an honor roll of officers who have fallen in the line of duty.

"Herein, we bring you to sites that have been central to the lives of 'the people' of Greater Boston over four centuries. You'll visit sites associated with the area's indigenous inhabitants and with the individuals and movements who sought to abolish slavery, to end war, challenge militarism, and bring about a more peaceful world, to achieve racial equity, gender justice, and sexual liberation, and to secure the rights of workers. We take you to some well-known sites, but more often to ones far off the well-beaten path of the Freedom Trail, to places in Boston's outlying neighborhoods. We also visit sites in numerous other municipalities that make up the Greater Boston region-from places such as Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn to Concord and Plymouth. The sites to which we do 'travel' include homes given that people's struggles, activism, and organizing sometimes unfold, or are even birthed in many cases in living rooms and kitchens. Trying to capture a place as diverse and dynamic as Boston is highly challenging. (One could say that about any 'big' place.) We thus want to make clear that our goal is not to be comprehensive, or to 'do justice' to the region. Given the constraints of space and time as well as the limitations of knowledge--both our own and what is available in published form--there are many important sites, cities, and towns that we have not included. Thus, in exploring scores of sites across Boston and numerous municipalities, our modest goal is to paint a suggestive portrait of the greater urban area that highlights its long-contested nature. In many ways, we merely scratch the region's surface--or many surfaces--given the multiple layers that any one place embodies. In writing about Greater Boston as a place, we run the risk of suggesting that the city writ-large has some sort of essence. Indeed, the very notion of a particular place assumes intrinsic characteristics and an associated delimited space. After all, how can one distinguish one place from another if it has no uniqueness and is not geographically differentiated? Nonetheless, geographer Doreen Massey insists that we conceive of places as progressive, as flowing over the boundaries of any particular space, time, or society; in other words, we should see places as processual or ever-changing, as unbounded in that they shape and are shaped by other places and forces from without, and as having multiple identities. In exploring Greater Boston from many venues over 400 years, we embrace this approach. That said, we have to reconcile this with the need to delimit Greater Boston--for among other reasons, simply to be in a position to name it and thus distinguish it from elsewhere"--

"An informative and impressionistic account of one Boston Police Department undercover cop's experiences in the 1960s era. Time travel with 'Mike Russo' through the underbelly of organized crime played out against the back drop of Boston's once infamous Combat Zone to the kaleidoscopic and oft violent world of social protest."--book jacket flap.

Frank DeSario shares his almost forty year career in a vivid account of his experiences with the Boston Police department. The Mafia, the gangland slayings, the Combat Zone, bussing and the resulting racial issues and riots, the thugs and the corruption are all discussed with a first hand look at the events. Frank also shares the glamorous side of his job which included escorting high profile celebrities, religious leaders and political leaders during their visits to the Boston area. The photos are vivid but give the reader a close look at what it was like to be a cop in Boston during the last four decades. He proudly covets his #1 badge as a symbol of strength, integrity, honor and pride.