Mayor orders inquiry in police handling of Mass. teen decapitation case
LAWRENCE, Mass. — The mayor of a city where the decapitated body of a high school student was found two weeks after he was reported missing announced an inquiry into police handling of the case today.
Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino’s family last saw him Nov. 18 and reported him missing to police Nov. 19.
The 16-year-old’s mutilated body was found on a bank of the Merrimack River Dec. 1. A Lawrence High classmate, Mathew Borges, 15, faces first-degree murder charges in the slaying.
Viloria-Paulino’s family has been critical of the police department’s handling of their missing person report. Family members have said police treated the case as that of a runaway child, while they were insisting the boy was in more serious danger. City councilors Modesto Maldonado and Brian De Pena demanded the resignation of Police Chief James Fitzpatrick.
Mayor Daniel Rivera was critical of Maldonado and De Pena’s demands, accusing them exploiting the murder, as they plan to announce a political challenger to Rivera in an upcoming mayoral race.
“The reality is that councilors Maldonado and De Pena are using this as a political football, the day before they announce that one of them will run for mayor,” Rivera said. “Shame on them for taking what’s a pretty bad situation in our city and using if for political gain. Neither one of them has asked one question or asked for one piece of paper (regarding the police search for Viloria-Paulino).”
The two councilors said they would seek Fitzpatrick’s resignation as they headed into a City Council meeting Tuesday night. De Pena went furthest, alleging Fitzpatrick’s failure to effectively respond to pleas from Viloria-Paulino’s family members to join their search for the boy fits into what he said is Fitzpatrick’s ineffective record of fighting crime.
Neither man returned phone calls and text messages Wednesday seeking a response to Rivera’s allegation that they had the race for mayor in mind when they suggested Fitzpatrick quit.
Rivera announced the four-person team assigned to investigate the police handling of Viloria-Paulino’s missing person’s case; they include Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Norma Ayala Leong and Angel Taveras, the former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, along with a private investigator and a Boston attorney.
Wednesday, a police officer with a record of tweaking department management said he would quit the force over what he said was its inadequate search for Viloria-Paulino. Officer William Green reversed himself later in the day, when Rivera refused to meet with him to accept his badge and gun. He did post a 25-minute monologue on his Facebook page alleging the police response to Viloria-Paulino’s disappearance was inadequate and warned, “Something very dark and evil has taken up residence or at least visited this city. Something evil and dark has visited Lawrence.”
Fitzpatrick did not return a phone call seeking to learn whether Green was still on the force and seeking comment on the demand by the two city councilors that he resign.
A woman walking her dog found the teen’s behind the local Boys and Girls Club on Friday. Borges, charged with his murder, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday and is being held without bail. Police have not said whether they have established a motive.
“(Lawrence) police treated this as a runaway case, even though from day one we told them it was not,” Ivelisse Cornielle, Viloria-Paulino’s grandmother, said just after his body was found.
Katiuska Paulino, Lee’s mother, expressed her family’s anger with police outside the courthouse following Borges’ arraignment Monday.
Speaking to the mayor, police chief and “every police officer and detective,” Paulino asked, “If it was their kid would they have waited two weeks to look for him?”
Two weeks after her son disappeared, Paulino said she went to the police station and there was a poster up about a missing dog named “Karma.”
“And my son’s flier was not up there,” she said.
Eddings writes for the North Andover, Massachusetts, Eagle-Tribune.