Overview
“The Fence is a monumental account of an urban travesty. Dick Lehr’s depiction of one of the darkest chapters in recent Boston law enforcement history and the savage injustices perpetrated on two hero cops—one black, one white—has all the earmarks of a classic.” — Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew soon after that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved he was not a black gang member but a plainclothes cop chasing the same murder suspect his assailants were. Officer Kenny Conley, who pursued and apprehended the suspect while Cox was being beaten, was then wrongfully convicted by federal prosecutors of lying when he denied witnessing the attack on his brother officer. Both Cox and Conley were native Bostonians, each dedicating his life to service with the Boston Police Department. But when they needed its support, they were heartlessly and ruthlessly abandoned.
A remarkable work of investigative journalism, Dick Lehr's The Fence tells the shocking true story of the attack and its aftermath—and exposes the lies and injustice hidden behind a "blue wall of silence."
Details
About the Author
GERARD O"NEILL has won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism as well as many other national journalism awards. He was the longtime editor of the Boston Globe"s award-winning investigative team. He co-authored Black Mass and also, with Lehr, The Underboss, as well as Rogues and Redeemers (Crown 2012), a political history of the Boston Irish focusing on the city"s most famous mayors.
