Boston Cop Misled Investigators On Wife's Shooting, a Felony, But Judge CWOFed Case
Officer Korey Franklin has not been fired, but he is suspended without pay
Korey Franklin, a Boston police officer who misled investigators about his wife’s shooting in 2018, had his felony case continued without a finding in August and has yet to be fired by the department.
“Officer Franklin’s lack of truthfulness and overt efforts to mislead a 911 operator and his fellow police officers wasted valuable resources and strike at the very heart of our criminal legal system,” Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins told me. “I believe that his felony offense warranted, at the very least, a guilty finding.”
Judge Anthony M. Campo, Jr. disagreed, and continued the case until August 20, 2024.
Boston Police Department spokesman Sergeant Detective John Boyle told me that Franklin is suspended, without pay, and will remain so until the department’s investigation of the case is complete.
Boyle did not give any information about the investigation, its timeline, or what penalties Franklin could face from the department.
It’s hard to look at the facts of the case and wonder if Franklin would have gotten off so easily were he not a police officer.
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“Shot just above her vaginal opening”
On Christmas Eve 2018, Franklin, then a member of the Boston Police Department's Gang Unit and one of the department’s 2017 Officers of the Year, told a 911 dispatcher that his wife “shot herself” while trying to put the gun back in the gun safe.
Officers on the scene found evidence of an “altercation,” and a criminalist reviewing the evidence found that the gun was fired as the victim had her back to the safe.
Franklin’s wife, who, according to the DA’s office, was “shot just above her vaginal opening,” was initially “in too much pain to speak with first responders.”
“The bullet traveled front to back through her body and caused vaginal and bowel damage before exiting,” according to the DA’s office.
Later, Franklin’s wife would give officers an inconsistent story—making charging Franklin with shooting the gun a difficult proposition for the DA’s office. Officers on scene should have done gunshot residue swabs to determine who fired the weapon; they did not.
Franklin’s wife would, however, testify to a grand jury in 2019 that Franklin was holding the gun when it went off.
Intentional misdirection
The DA held that Franklin’s “false depiction of the shooting as a self-inflicted accident by the victim misdirected the investigation in multiple ways" by shifting focus away from himself and avoiding the designation of an "officer-involved shooting," which would have triggered a Firearm Discharge Investigations Team investigation.
“As defense counsel notes, a different investigation would not necessarily have yielded any further evidence or charges,” the DA’s disposition reads. “But the evidence remains that Franklin initially misdirected his colleagues away from connecting him to the weapon at all, while the victim lay screaming in pain on the kitchen floor.”
That misdirection led to Franklin’s indictment by a grand jury on May 10, 2019 for intimidation of a witness by misleading a police officer, a felony.
“A higher standard”
After an attempt to have the charges dismissed was denied on February 6, 2020, Franklin’s attorneys petitioned the court on June 11, 2020 to continue the case without a finding.
Campo came down on Franklin’s side and continued the case until August 20, 2024. At that time, if Franklin abides by the terms of the continuance—possessing no firearms and submitting to a single mental health evaluation—the felony charges will be dropped.
The DA had only asked for two years probation, but on the condition Franklin submitted a guilty plea. Despite her disappointment in the ruling, Rollins told me that Franklin will “remain in the Law Enforcement Automatic Discovery (LEAD) database,” a Brady disclosure directory that ensures Suffolk County DAs must tell defendants if law enforcement officials “involved in their case has a history of dishonesty.” Rollins added that Franklin will be placed on the Do Not Call List if he is not fired.
“Members of law enforcement are, and should be, held to a higher standard,” Rollins said.
As I reported last week, Boston Police Sergeant Clifton McHale, who bragged about running down protesters with his vehicle during last year’s George Floyd demonstrations, is back on full duty. He has since been suspended for 10 days—a “higher standard” indeed.
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