Polio said today in an interview at his Braintree home that he was astonished at any implication of a coverup. He said he didn’t instruct officers to release Bishop and wasn’t close to her mother, who he said served on the police board years before the shooting.</p>
<p>“(There’s) no coverup, no missing records,” said Polio, now 87. “If they’re missing, they’re missing since I retired.”</p>
<p>A story on the Dec. 6, 1986, shooting in the Quincy Patriot Ledger newspaper quoted Bishop’s mother, Judith Bishop, saying the gun accidentally went off into a bedroom wall when her daughter was trying to teach herself to use it in case the home was burglarized. Amy Bishop then asked her brother to help her unload the gun when it went off again, killing him in front of her, Judith Bishop told the newspaper.</p>
<p>Polio said today that at the time there were questions about whether Amy Bishop intended to kill her brother because of conflicting reports about whether the two had argued or had just been horsing around when the gun was fired.</p>
<p>Polio said Amy Bishop was taken into custody as “a safekeeping thing” to question her but was not arrested. The head of detectives eventually recommended the office of then-District Attorney William Delahunt, now a U.S. congressman, hold an inquiry into the shooting, Polio said.</p>
<p>A March 1987 report by Delahunt’s office determined the cause of death was “accidental discharge of a firearm,” based on interviews with Bishop and her parents. It didn’t mention an argument between Bishop and her brother.</p>
<p>The report by Trooper Brian Howe said Bishop’s “highly emotional state” after the shooting made it impossible to question her. Since her mother had seen the shooting and said it was an accident, police decided to question the family later after everyone calmed down, the report said.</p>
<p>Howe and Braintree police questioned the family members individually on Dec. 17, 1986. Bishop said she wanted to unload the weapon and started to lift it when “someone said something to her and she turned and the gun went off” while her brother was walking across the kitchen, according to the report.</p>
<p>When Bishop fled the house, she said she wasn’t aware she’d hit her brother and was instead worried she’d ruined the kitchen, the report said. She said she didn’t recall anything, including taking the gun from the house, until she saw her mother later at the police station, it said.</p>
<p>Polio said the officer who took Bishop into custody told Polio he was upset she was released but “it was an isolated cop, telling me something. It wasn’t a big movement.”