By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
BOSTON – He may not have worn a trilby hat or walked around with a lollipop in his mouth like television’s fictional New York City Police lieutenant Theo Kojak (played by Telly Savalas), but Boston’s Robert Fawcett was equally tough and compassionate. The police detective known as “The Bear” made a lasting impression on residents of East Boston for being that rare neighborhood cop who kept people in check and looked out for them as well.
Legend in his time
Perhaps his son Timothy, then a Saugus police officer in 2007, described his father best when he said, “He was an old-time cop who sometimes threw out the book. He would just give a kid a kick in the seat of the pants if he thought that would be more effective than an arrest.”
The son added, “When he got to the office, there would be six people waiting to speak to him, hoping he would get them off the hook.”
Boston lawyer Ronald A. Wysocki stated, “He was a legend in his time. In his heyday, teenagers in East Boston had two heroes: Joe Barboza, the thug (and Mafia hit man), and Bobby Fawcett, the policeman. It was unusual for teens to admire a policeman.”
Photo/Courtesy of Boston Police History
Several people took to Facebook to confirm and share their memories.
Joseph Piantedosi shared:
“Funny story. Bobby came looking for me and I was at a friend’s house. He knocked on the door and said open the door, I want Joe out. My friend said, do you have a warrant, and he said here’s my warrant and knocked the door down. Funny now but not then.”
Anne McDonough Bowen remembered:
“I remember him very well .. One of the finest.. He made many walks taking misbehaved kids home to their parents.”
John Rizzo recalled:
“I remembered him chasing me through the railroad tracks in Eastie as a kid yelling, ‘Rizzo I’m going to tell your dad.’”
Unorthodox ways
The six-foot-tall Fawcett, whose unorthodox ways earned him quite the reputation, worked for the Boston Police Department from 1958 to 1981. He was also known for making selective busts with recommendations for certain criminals being “let off” to become informants. His methods were not viewed as brutal but merely practical and he challenged the department to show any clouds in his reputation. They never did.
Of course, not everyone appreciated being told right from wrong. There was a time when someone placed dead fish under the springs of his car. Other incidents included sugar poured into his gas tank, tires having been cut 13 times and his own vehicle being stolen three times.
In 1961, Fawcett gave chase to two teen perpetrators joyriding in his vehicle. The car had been stolen from his home late one night. While riding in a cruiser with his partner Detective Robert Wilson, Fawcett spotted his car. The officers made a “U” turn, forced the car off the road and arrested the occupants, a 16-year-old Roxbury youth and a 19-year-old from Jamaica Plain. The teens admitted to stealing the car but claimed they found it on Columbia Road in Dorchester.
Fawcett, along with 34 officers and 24 detectives, were transferred to a department aimed at putting more cops on the street in 1974. But after he was demoted to patrolman and assigned to walking a beat in Charlestown, a large crowd gathered at East Boston High School to protest this change, with one woman shouting, “We want our supercop back!” He returned to East Boston the next year.
As several people have attested, you did not grow up in East Boston without knowing the name Robert “The Bear” Fawcett or his reputation. Robert Fawcett passed away in 2007.
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