Revere Sgt. who fled shooting fired

REVERE – Police Sgt. Evan Franklin fled the scene of a fellow officer’s murder last September, but it was his decision to flag down a junior officer responding to the shooting and ask him for a ride that got Franklin fired Thursday.”Sgt. Franklin not only delayed the initial police response, he withheld critical information from the initial responding officer. This egregious breach of Sgt. Franklin’s professional responsibilities, by itself, warrants his discharge from the Revere Police Department,” Mayor Thomas Ambrosino concluded in his 10-page decision.Neil Rossman, Franklin’s attorney, said he was “disappointed but not surprised by the firing” and said he would wait to speak with Franklin, an 11-year department veteran, before filing an appeal with an arbitrator.”Sgt. Franklin was not acting rationally at the time,” Rossman said.Ambrosino also concluded in his decision that Franklin “blatantly lied” to a State Police captain interviewing him about his actions following the shooting. According to the decision, Franklin, when questioned, at first said he ran home, only to subsequently acknowledge he received a ride from a fellow officer part of the way.Police Chief Terence Reardon said Franklin’s termination was a necessary action.”It’s unfortunate we had to do what we had to do, but I think we did the right thing,” Reardon said. “It’s not something I enjoyed doing.”Franklin’s firing is the latest development in a chain of events that began shortly after 1 a.m. on Sept. 29 when Franklin, Officers Daniel Talbot, William Soto and Stacy Bruzzese and Talbot’s fiancé, Connie Bethell, sat in the Revere High School field bleachers drinking beer.At about 1:30 a.m., Talbot and Soto exchanged words with Derek Lodie, a Revere teenager walking through the field. Lodie allegedly summoned Robert Iacoviello to the field. Prosecutors said Iacoviello fired a single shot that struck Talbot in the head.Soto returned fire without hitting Lodie or Iacoviello while Bruzzese protected Bethell. Franklin ran in the direction of nearby Janvrin Avenue to Beach Street where, according to Ambrosino’s written decision, he encountered Officer Robert Impemba responding to the shooting.Referring to Impemba’s report on the encounter, Ambrosino said Franklin asked Impemba to give him a ride home. The junior officer said he was responding to the shooting and Franklin replied, “All right then, just bring me to Broadway.””There is no evidence to support any claim that Sgt. Franklin got into the cruiser not knowing that Impemba was responding to the scene of a shooting. The evidence instead supports the finding that Franklin used his supervisory position to interrupt the emergency response of a police cruiser fairly close to the scene of a shooting, which in fact became a murder,” Ambrosino wrote in his decision.Rossman said Franklin “was not acting in a normal situation.”He added: “This had nothing to do with police work. It had to do with five knuckleheads drinking in a park at 2 a.m., who happened to have day jobs as police officers. It is tragic for everyone, especially Officer Talbot who had this needless interaction with these young thugs.”Iacoviello has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering Talbot. Lodie and two other people have been charged as accessories to Talbot’s death.Like Franklin, Soto and Bruzzese were placed on paid administrative leave after the shooting. They returned to work but Franklin received a five-day suspension on April 4, three days before Reardon recommended the mayor order a hearing to consider additional discipline.Reardon said Thursday that Bruzzese and Soto will likely face disciplinary action in connection to the events that occurred Sept. 29, but declined to talk about details.