"We have footage of when he was down, but we wanted to ask him questions like, did he have any injuries? What happened?" Evans said.

But Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said earlier this month that the department only recently interviewed the pedestrian in the video, seven weeks after the May 24 incident, despite investigators' repeated attempts to reach him.

An investigation into an off-duty Boston police officer who was recorded roughing up a pedestrian in the Back Bay is still not complete nearly two months after the incident, and civil rights activists are calling on the police department to move more swiftly.


The video, which was posted on Facebook, shows West Roxbury Patrol Officer Edward P. Barrett on top of a pedestrian with his knee on the man's back. The confrontation allegedly began when Milton Gurin, 54, hit Barrett's vehicle with an umbrella as the officer turned onto Arlington Street.

With frustration mounting across the country over police misconduct and accountability, particularly after police-involved shooting deaths of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, civil rights advocates say the department should move quickly to resolve the matter.

"Considering the times we're in where the public is concerned about police misconduct . . . it is important to look at [it] and make sure people are doing things effectively," Boston civil rights attorney Howard Friedman said.

Gurin's attorney, Carlton Williams, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the delay in meeting with police investigators was because of scheduling issues.

Evans said investigators have also interviewed Stephen Harlowe, 47, who recorded the incident. Investigators also retrieved footage captured by surveillance cameras in the area.

Evans said he did not know how long the investigation would take.

"I know it's a big issue, and we're trying to move as quickly as we can, but I'd rather get it right than get it wrong," Evans said. "When we do our extensive investigation, we will release it."


A Globe review last year found that the department typically takes years to complete investigations into complaints against police officers and, in some cases, even longer to dole out discipline. Policing experts and civil rights attorneys have said such delays are unfair not only to the public but to the officers as well. The police civilian oversight board reported last year that 47 percent of the complaints it reviewed took two years to complete.

Jack McDevitt, director of Northeastern's Institute on Race and Justice, said that without violating privacy considerations, the department should try to keep the public in the loop about highly publicized incidents involving the police.

"It's important to keep the public informed," he said. "It's important to know that the process did play itself out. That restores faith in the process because they saw something happen."

The institute recommended in 2005 that complaints be resolved within a six-month window.

Two high-profile incidents involving Boston police officers last year have been resolved. In August 2015, Officer Ted R. Rivera, a 30-year veteran with the department, was investigated after a video appeared on YouTube showing him with his hands on the neck of a handcuffed suspect who was resisting efforts to put him into a cruiser.

That incident was reviewed by the department's internal affairs unit, and investigators did not recommend any charges against the officer, according to the department.


And an incident in April 2015 in which Boston Police Sergeant Henry Staines waved a replica firearm in the face of a man who believed it was a real gun was resolved through informal mediation between the officer and the man days after a video of the confrontation was made public, according to the department.

Barrett has been investigated by the department before. In 2005 and 2006, the police department investigated use of force complaints filed against Barrett and determined that one of the alleged incidents did not occur and that Barrett did not act improperly during the other incident.

Jan Ransom can be reached at jan.ransom@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Jan_Ransom.