Worcester Police Department Accident Report – Sam Turken is a Worcester reporter for GBH News covering housing, the environment and other social and economic issues. feedback? question? Story idea? Please contact Sam at sam_turken@.
In late 2021, TJ was driving his Mercedes SUV when Judy was pulled over by Worcester police. Judy, who is black and runs a marketing firm in Worcester, was on her way to Union Station to catch a commuter train to Boston for a business meeting. But Judy never attended the meeting.
Worcester Police Department Accident Report
Worcester police pulled him over because Judy’s car didn’t match the color on the registration. Judy told police the white car was covered in purple vinyl wrap and was not required by law to renew its registration. Still, the interaction became tense, and police arrested Judy on charges of disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and interfering with an officer, according to the arrest report. But Judy’s lawyer, Joseph Hennessey, said the video Judy took on his cell phone during the incident showed he did nothing illegal.
Worcester Transfers Investigative Commander Capt. Michael Mckiernan
Judy and Hennessy are now challenging the allegations in court, saying police made up details in their arrest reports. They also sued the Worcester Police Department for racial profiling, saying they stopped Judy more than 70 times over the past eight years. Judy said the police accused him of stealing cars and selling drugs, but later realized he had done none of those things.
“I feel like every time, even if I’m not driving, if I make eye contact or a cop sees my fear or sees that I’m black, they’re going to come after me,” Judy said. “Now I know when they’re coming and I have my phone ready” to record.
News like Judy’s Help explains why the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Worcester Police Department for excessive force and discriminatory police practices based on race and gender. Massachusetts criminal defense attorneys say the investigation has been ongoing for a long time.
In addition to excessive force and discriminatory policing, Worcester police routinely fabricated evidence and illegally fabricated charges to justify arrests, lawyers said. They note that since 2006, the city has paid out nearly $4.8 million to settle three dozen lawsuits against the police department for reasons ranging from false arrests to excessive use of force.
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“Of all the police departments I’ve been around, Worcester is the worst,” Hennessey said. He served a total of 23 years as a police officer in Waltham, Ashland and Sherburne. Since becoming a defense attorney, he has handled cases involving more than a dozen other police departments in Massachusetts.
“[Worcester Police Chief Steve Sargent] turned his head the other way and allowed this to happen,” he added.
The city and police declined to comment on the story, citing an ongoing Justice Department investigation. But they said they were cooperating with the investigation and “are striving to provide the highest quality municipal services to our residents”.
Federal officials have not yet provided a timetable for the investigation, but say they are reviewing complaints of police misconduct and evaluating police performance and holding their officers accountable. Once complete, the investigation could lead to a court-supervised order forcing the department to make reforms.
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False arrests and fabricated evidence have long been a problem for police departments across the country. In 2013, the Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police called for investigative reforms, such as stricter evaluation of evidence, to prevent warrantless arrests. But evidence tampering remains one of the leading forms of police misconduct that leads to wrongful convictions, according to a 2020 study by the National Innocence Registry.
Hennessy said he has seen more than a dozen cases in Worcester where videos and photos have proven officers wrongly arrested someone or fabricated evidence. Héctor Piñeiro, another defense attorney in Worcester, saw even more. In fact, when Pinheiro defends clients who may have been wrongfully arrested or subjected to excessive force, his first priority is to find any public camera footage that might show officers lying about the arrest.
Pinheiro has sued the police department dozens of times, accusing officers of fraud to cover up excessive use of force or legitimate insults.
One famous example of a false arrest occurred in early 2020, when police stopped a car near the city center because they suspected the driver was involved in drug trafficking. While waiting for the red light, a group of policemen rushed to the car and immediately pulled the driver Brim Fofan out of the car. Although the police soon discovered that the drug deal never took place, they arrested Fofano, who was black, claiming he resisted and tried to run them over with a car.
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But his lawyer, Hennessy, said surveillance footage viewed by GBH News from a nearby building showed none of that happened and prosecutors eventually dropped the charges. The incident continues to traumatize Fofana, who immigrated from Liberia 15 years ago and has never been arrested before.
“The whole time it happened, I was really confused, like, ‘What happened?'” said Fofana, who is now suing the police for racial profiling, reflecting on what happened. It is impossible to predict what will happen. “
“Of all the police departments I’ve been around, Worcester is the worst.” Joseph Hennessey, Worcester defense attorney and former police officer
Another arrest involving fabricated charges occurred in 2019 when a Worcester police officer stopped a black man at Walmart on suspicion of shoplifting. When Officer Joseph Mitchell realized the man had not stolen anything, he charged him with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors dropped the charges after footage showed Mitchell was lying and that the man had done nothing wrong. The city of Worcester settled with the man for $20,000.
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The police department cleared Mitchell of racial profiling, but upheld the false arrest charge, according to internal disciplinary records.
In early 2019, Mitchell arrested a woman at a gas station and accused her of hitting him with her car. The woman, Allyson Kirkland, denied hitting him and continued to challenge the allegations in court. She and her legal team found no surveillance footage that would exonerate her. But they do have a transcript of another officer’s call with the dispatcher before the arrest, which Kirkland says contradicts the arrest report. In the recording reviewed by GBH News, Officer Mike Prizio said Kirkland tried to hit him and Mitchell but didn’t actually hit them.
Since his arrest, Kirkland has spent a lot of time trying to prove his innocence by finding possible witnesses, gathering evidence and searching for surveillance footage. She said the charges on her record made it difficult for her to find an apartment and find work as a caregiver. She was also ashamed that her 14-year-old daughter knew about her arrest.
“Kids don’t necessarily learn from what you tell them. They learn the most from watching you, so when I got arrested, it was a little disingenuous for me to say, ‘Don’t get arrested,'” Kirkland said.
Bolton Police Department
Police experts and advocates say there are several reasons why police make false arrests. Fabricating the facts can be an easy way for police to hide racial profiling or to justify an arrest or the use of excessive force against someone who has done nothing wrong. Hennessy said that when he was at the police academy, his teachers taught him that there is always a way to file a disorderly conduct charge.
For example, he said, if an officer steps on someone’s leg, the person will instinctively push the officer’s leg back. The officer can then say, ‘You just assaulted me,'” Hennessy said.
Forgery charges are particularly useful for police officers who must make a minimum number of arrests or citations in a given period of time. Hennessy said if an officer in the gang unit doesn’t meet certain standards, he risks being replaced. It’s a nationwide problem, with a survey by the National Police Research Platform finding that eight in 10 police officers say their agency is “more interested in measuring the volume of policing” than the quality of their work.
Pinheiro added that the police will fabricate or present evidence against people they consider useless, even if they have done nothing wrong at the time of their arrest. A practice known as “Nobel Case Policing” involves getting “bad guys” off the streets at all costs.
Worcester County Sheriff’s Office
In Worcester, Pinheiro said that happened when police illegally searched people’s homes and cars for drugs. He and Hennessey pointed to a 2014 case in which police found evidence in an apartment during a drug search. Hennessey said time stamps on police photos showed officers placed drug packaging materials on the refrigerator in the apartment after the operation began.
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