But the spirit of forthrightness ended there. At the time, Murray denied he’d been speeding, and both he and the State Police blamed the accident on black ice. Subsequent information from the car’s so-called “black box’’ recorder has contradicted that account, raising the question of whether - and at whose instigation - State Police suppressed or ignored information to spare the lieutenant governor from public embarrassment.
State Police initially resisted media requests to retrieve the black box data, on the dubious grounds that investigators were too busy on more urgent cases. Besides, the agency insisted, the cause of the accident had already been identified. When Murray, under pressure from reporters and Secretary of State William Galvin, agreed to release the black box data, it became clear that the lieutenant governor was extraordinarily lucky to escape unhurt. He had indeed been speeding - he was driving 75 miles per hour in the seconds before the crash. The car sped up to 108 mph, sideswiped a rock ledge at 92 mph, and flipped over twice. Contrary to what Murray initially said, he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Based on the new information, State Police speculated that Murray had fallen asleep at the wheel and belatedly issued him a $555 ticket.
State Police shouldn’t necessarily rush to penalize motorists who’ve barely walked away with their lives. But in Murray’s case, the State Police should have obtained the black box immediately - and released the data on it immediately - for the same reason that Murray requested the sobriety test: Any serious auto accident involving a high-ranking state official in a state car under strange circumstances is bound to arouse public suspicion.
Murray has insisted he sought no special treatment, and the State Police wouldn’t be the first arm of state government to try to protect an elected official. Still, Murray made his own public-relations disaster worse by trying to make his predawn drive sound heroic, saying that he was out inspecting storm damage. Now he maintains, more credibly, that he was up early simply because he couldn’t sleep.
Murray is facing requests for his cellphone records, which might shed light on whether he was actually on the phone or texting or reading e-mail at the time of the accident. Murray, out of an abundance of caution, should hand those records over. After all, the black box data, which State Police initially deemed irrelevant to the case, turned out to be highly informative indeed.
