Jeff Perry, Now More than Ever

This past week, The Boston Globe ran its second FRONT PAGE STORY in five weeks regarding Republican congressional candidate Jeff Perry's involvement, or lack thereof, in a pair of twenty-year old cases involving unlawful strip searches of two girls by the same Wareham policeman.

Let it be said clearly at the outset that this type of behavior should absolutely not be tolerated by any police department or its community. And it should be noted, that Scott Flanagan, the police officer accused in both cases, was fired from the force and later confessed to the acts and went to prison. The Globe articles, as well as several articles appearing in the Cape Cod Times, have attempted to tar Perry who was Flanagan's shift supervisor at the time.

The bottom line is that the guilty party was punished and Perry was exonerated. His only failing was to believe the word of one of his men, but that only lasted until the facts emerged. The incidents gave raise to Flanagan's criminal proceedings as well as two civil suites brought by the girl's families. The Globe and the Cape Cod Times are now sifting through testimony from these events, as well as police records, to find any inconsistencies between those sources and Perry's current recollections. Those with plenty of extra time and access to Google, can revisit the press reports in their dizzying detail. Note to Press: Just because something is maintained in a deposition or trial testimony does not automatically make such statements factual. Trials essentially try to determine which party's perceptions of events most closely resemble reality. These articles are scrambling to connect a collection of shadowy dots to somehow prove, twenty years later, that Perry acted improperly. All this scenario needs is a grassy knoll.

But the goal of these articles is not necessarily to "prove" anything. What they have been successful in doing is generating headlines that link Perry's name with provocative words such as "strip search". Those of us who know Jeff Perry will dig for the truth in the quasi-allegations. Unfortunately, many others will remember only the headlines.

Jeff perry is guilty, but not of the shadowy charges surrounding these articles. Jeff is "guilty" of offering voters in the Massachusetts 10th congressional district the choice of a candidate with strong conservative Republican principles, who would bring a voice of sanity and balance to the funny farm currently masquerading as the U.S. Congress. Now, more than ever, we need to send Jeff Perry to Congress.