Officer And His Suspect Grew Up On Same Mean Streets

They traveled the same orbit of tough streets and trouble, in Dudley
Square, Grove Hall, Fields Corner.

They came up at a time when crime brought Boston to its knees. They
had big families, and the same struggles of any black boy trying to
become a man.

Until Dec. 27, Ricky Bodden and Kyle Wilcox were strangers. But they
knew each other's worlds. In time, Wilcox became a young cop, Bodden
a criminal - opposite paths that nonetheless drew the two men closer.
When they traded stares across a Dorchester playground, their fates
locked permanently.

That day, Wilcox and Bodden met in a street game of search and
evasion, one played out harmlessly countless times between police and
suspects. This one ended with Bodden's death.

Wilcox, a Boston Municipal Police officer, said he killed Bodden in
an encounter that began when he saw Bodden and two friends in a park,
and suspected them of smoking marijuana. They weren't, but Wilcox
continued questioning Bodden and tried to search him. Suddenly,
Bodden bolted and Wilcox gave chase.

As he pursued Bodden, Wilcox said, he saw the barrel of a gun rise up
over Bodden's shoulder. Fearing for his life, he said, he fired.
Police say they recovered a loaded .45-caliber gun next to Bodden's
body.

After four months of police investigation, questions about the case
linger and multiply. And the debate over what happened between Bodden
and Wilcox grows more bitter by the day.

From the start, Bodden, a man with a violent past, seemed an unlikely
martyr. But an autopsy report showing Bodden was shot in the back of
the neck prompted outrage, first by relatives and a few ministers,
then by an ever-growing train of protesters.

Their swelling numbers now include students, Socialist Party members,
and a California watchdog group. Last week, a new witness said he saw
the encounter from his moving car, and that Bodden showed no gun.

With every leaflet and rally, the fringe cries of murder grow louder.
And the portraits of Bodden and Wilcox, two men of like worlds, grow
more extreme.

The Suffolk district attorney's office, which inherited the police
investigation this month, must now decide whether Wilcox's actions
were criminal. The process could take weeks, said spokesman James
Borghesani.

If no charges are brought, the case will move back to the Boston
Police Department, which oversees the special municipal force, to
determine whether Wilcox, now on paid leave, should be disciplined.

With accusations of a police coverup crackling, some supporters of
Bodden fear the rhetoric could drown out the issues at the heart of
the case.

''Was it an awful mistake? Probably. But I don't see the point in
crucifying this officer,'' said the Rev. Shaun Harrison, an early
supporter of Bodden's family. ''I just want to know what happened. In
that, there are real questions.''

Many, including some officers, have questioned Wilcox's judgment.
They agree that three men, in the afternoon, in a tot lot known for
drug dealing, raise suspicions. But once Wilcox realized Bodden was
smoking a cigarette, not marijuana, they say, the encounter should
have ended.

''The problem Kyle has is, why can't you stand in a tot lot? It's not
illegal,'' said a high-ranking police officer. ''You could have asked
them to be on their way. But once he was satisfied Bodden wasn't
smoking a joint, what justification do you have for going any further
than that?''

But Wilcox and Bodden did go further. In a matter of minutes, their
introduction along a park's edge moved from guarded banter to a
verbal face-off. Then a chase, and drawn guns.

`So dangerous'

Kyle Wilcox dreamed of only two things in life: Becoming a police
officer and a pastry chef. At 23, a graduate of the Police Academy
and cooking school, he had achieved both.

He still lives in the sprawling Roxbury Victorian where he was born,
the place his grandmother runs as the 82-year-old matriarch of three
generations.

Mary Wilcox says she always worried about her grandson walking a
beat. If he goes back, she'll worry even more.

''It's so dangerous,'' she said. Nearby, a spit-and-polish portrait
of Kyle beams from a side table. ''I told him not to go into that
line of work. But it's what he wanted to do.''

So she urged him on, through Boy Scouts and the Boston Police
Explorers, a program for teens interested in law enforcement. In
1999, Wilcox applied to join the Boston Municipal Police.

Largely white and long derided as a patronage haven, the municipal
force has served as a catch-all, patrolling city buildings, parks,
and public housing. When he graduated from the academy, just two
months before the shooting, Wilcox was one of just five blacks on the
114-member force.

When news of the shooting broke, most assumed Wilcox was white. Some still do.

But if the force sorely lacked diversity, Wilcox seemed just the type
of officer it needed. He knew Boston's toughest corners, even as he
avoided their traps. Now with Bodden dead, Wilcox has come to
symbolize the rash use of deadly force.

Standing outside his childhood home, Wilcox said he could not comment
on the case because it is under investigation.

''I wish I could tell you everything that happened that day and
hopefully at some point, I will,'' he said last week. ''Because I
don't believe I did wrong that day, and I don't regret what I did.''

Letter from prison

On Ricky Bodden's criminal record, the word ''assault'' shows up six
times, the words ''assault to kill'' twice. In 1990, at age 19, he
was sentenced to five years in prison for attempted murder.

Joshua Dohan, a public defender who represented Bodden in the case,
remembers him for two reasons: the letter Bodden wrote to him from
prison, and the fact that its contents showed he was functionally
illiterate. If Bodden failed, Dohan says, it is in part because
others in his life failed him first.

''I'm not saying don't hold them responsible,'' Dohan said. ''But
where is the accountability for the adults in his life who didn't do
their jobs? What happens to them?''

Records show Bodden was enrolled in Boston public schools through 5th
grade, but by the time he was a freshman in high school he was in a
program for students with severe behavior problems. From there, he
drops off the radar for good.

The young father had a heroin habit, friends say. He got sick when he
couldn't get what he needed. Police sources say that on the day he
was shot, Bodden was just that - dope sick. But as they sat hunched
over a picnic table, neither he nor his friends had drugs.

Suspicious scene

The Quincy-Stanley playground sinks low off a stone hill near
Columbia Road. From his first-floor window, Richard Hill can see it
in full view. A project manager for a construction company, Hill saw
none of the shooting. But he knows this park.

Toddlers still play here, he says. But just as often, groups of teens
claim this corner as their own, marking their turf with tags of
''BMB,'' the Bellevue-Mt. Everett Bombers.

In the past year, Hill has had one of his windows busted. He's seen
kids with drugs and the bags used to package them. A half-dozen
times, the teens cut a hole through his landlord's fence, a back-door
exit for when the cops give chase.

''I've never been personally assaulted, but I've had to confront
them,'' Hill said.

The problems escalated in August, and in the months prior to the
shooting police made about a dozen arrests at the park - for
beatings, minor drug dealing, knife-point muggings. Boston police
asked the municipal police to beef up patrols.

It's unclear whether Wilcox and his partner saw a drug dealer in the
29-year-old Bodden as they rode by. But something about the scene
made them suspicious. They U-turned and headed back.

When they pulled up, Bodden and his friends had made their first move
- - to the sidewalk along the park's perimeter.

The exchange lasted only a few minutes. It began routinely, as Wilcox
and Bodden sized up their situations.

There was no smell of pot, no evidence of drugs. But Wilcox
proceeded. Asking a series of questions, he approached Bodden as
would any officer who could not establish probable cause or even
reasonable suspicion of a crime.

He could inquire, but he could not command.

How you gentlemen doing today? You all been here long? Do you mind
coming over here, answering a few questions?

And then, Do you mind if I search you?

Sources close to Wilcox say Bodden's reaction to that question
instantly heightened the officer's suspicions. First Bodden agreed to
a search, then withdrew. As Wilcox moved to pat him down, Bodden
pushed away, but Wilcox persisted.

''You have to look at the totality of what the officer knew at the
time,'' a police source said. ''You've got a park that's had
problems, you've got three grown men in a park. Now Bodden says yes
to a search and takes it back? What are you hiding?''

But several legal specialists interviewed say Wilcox's reaction was
out of bounds.

''An officer who sees three guys in a tot lot in the middle of the
day may think they're up to no good,'' said Tracey Maclin, a
professor at Boston University School of Law. ''But legally, that's
not good enough. You have to have specific facts to justify picking
these guys out from the rest of the universe in order to search
them.''

And Bodden, he said, was within his rights in refusing Wilcox's
request to search him.

''Most police officers will tell you that people who don't give them
consent are more suspicious,'' Maclin said. ''[But] if you can't
exercise your right without it counting against you, it's a hollow
right.''

Maclin did agree with officers in one regard: The parsing of legal
rights is far different from the rules of the street. When Bodden
suddenly bolted, Wilcox's instinct told him to follow. And when he
saw a pointed gun, Wilcox says, he did not wait for Bodden to fire it.

Marked man

No ballistics expert in the world could convince Carol Bodden that
you can be running away from someone and preparing to shoot them at
the same time. One or the other happened, the sister says, but not
both.

Now, she has uprooted her life in New Orleans and vows to follow the
investigation through to the end. A civil suit hovers on the horizon,
but Bodden says this isn't about money.

''I know Ricky's history,'' she said. ''This isn't about that. This
is about the right to be in a park and not get shot and killed,
whoever you are.''

While few believe Wilcox will face criminal charges, or even serious
discipline, they say the shooting will mark him.

''It's his story against a dead man's story,'' said one police
source. ''If he says he didn't do anything wrong and it can't be
proven, he'll probably go back to work. But he's never going to be
the same. He's going to wear this for life.''