The latest alleged law enforcement misconduct in Mass, Feb. 23-Mar. 1

Here are the media reports of alleged law enforcement misconduct in Massachusetts that I’ve tracked during the last week.

Stories involving federal law enforcement

• “A Boston federal district judge [on February 25] voided the Trump administration’s policy of sending immigrants to ‘third countries’ that are not their countries of origin, ruling it is unconstitutional. … The order, which will likely be appealed by the Department of Homeland Security, says detained immigrants are entitled to meaningful notice and a chance to contest a third-country deportation. The government, wrote [the judge], must first try to deport immigrants to their home countries.” (GBH)
• “Local refugees filed the first lawsuit of its kind against the Trump administration for its new policy that would allow … immigration enforcement agents to arrest and detain any refugee who’s been in the United States for more than a year and has yet to adjust to lawful permanent resident status by successfully getting a green card. … Jeff Thielman, who leads the immigrant advocacy organization International Institute of New England, said the policy is an ‘impossible requirement to meet’ because the government doesn’t let refugees apply for green cards until they’ve been in the United States for a year.” (GBH)
• “Nearly 100 days after being deported to Honduras — far from the Babson College campus, friends and family she calls home — Any Lucia Lopez Belloza thought a U.S. government–arranged flight would finally take her back to Boston. By [the evening of February 26], the 20-year-old college student realized it was a one-way ticket back to detention.” (MassLive) 27
• “A federal judge in Boston [on February 27] ordered the immediate release of a Venezuelan man who had been locked up at the Plymouth County jail since November because ICE was unable to give specific reasons for why it felt it simply had to arrest him two years after he’d been released as he pursued a claim to stay here permanently because he faced persecution and torture in his homeland.” (Universal Hub)

Stories involving state and local law enforcement

The latest on the State Police cover-up

• “The Massachusetts State Police hired an outside firm to review how the agency handled a fatal cruiser crash involving an allegedly drunk officer more than two years after the incident occurred. State Police Sgt. Scott Quigley is accused of having a blood alcohol level above the legal limit when he crashed his cruiser head-on into a wheelchair van in Dec. 2023, causing injuries to one of its occupants, Angelo Schettino, who later died.” (Lowell Sun)
• “Defendants in a Lowell murder trial want one of the key investigators in their case [Quigley] to testify about a fatal cruiser crash he was involved in, allegedly while drunk, in a move to dismiss their trial over prosecutorial misconduct. But the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office says that neither a hearing featuring testimony from the officer, nor a dismissal, are necessary.” (Lowell Sun)
• “The body camera footage suggests that members of the MSP, including a high-ranking supervisor, visited Quigley at Lahey Hospital, where he was transported by ambulance after the crash. There is no mention of the hospital visits or Quigley’s demeanor that night in any of the official reports.” (Boston 25 News)

• “Among those who investigated Quigley’s involvement in the crash was then Sgt. Jennifer Penton, who was recently indicted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia, a recruit fatally wounded in a training exercise. Penton, now a lieutenant, is also charged with perjury and accused of lying to a grand jury investigating Delgado-Garcia’s death.” (MassLive)
• “In dash camera footage, the trooper assigned to investigate the crash, Sgt. Jennifer Penton, seems willing to delay an interview with Quigley, after being told by a lieutenant that she shouldn’t come to Lahey Hospital. … Penton eventually interviewed Quigley eight days later.” (Lowell Sun)
• “One of the partners at the firm hired by the Massachusetts State Police to review its handling of a fatal 2023 cruiser crash used to work for the agency. Kathleen O’Toole, a partner at 21st Century Policing Solutions, is a former lieutenant colonel who oversaw special operations for the MSP. She was also the first woman to be named Boston Police Commissioner and held the role of state Secretary of Public Safety under then-Gov. Bill Weld.” (Lowell Sun)
• “The discovery fight in the Phan murder case continued this week after a defense attorney accused the State Police of possibly hiding crucial video from the fatal 2023 cruiser crash caused by Sgt. Scott Quigley and misleading the court about what evidence actually existed. In a motion filed [February 26], attorney William Dolan — who represents Channa Phan, one of three Lowell brothers charged with first‑degree murder — asked a Middlesex Superior Court judge to cite the State Police or its attorney for contempt.” (Lowell Sun)

More misconduct allegations

• “Karen Read is asking a judge to allow her access to more than a decade’s worth of messages pulled from former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor’s phone to aid her defense in the wrongful death lawsuit she faces.” (MassLive)
• “A Massachusetts State Police sergeant charged with assault after a traffic stop allegedly mistook cosmetics for illicit drugs, forcibly taking the driver to the ground and blasting her with pepper spray. This, according to an application for a criminal complaint against Sgt. Joel P. Daoust, who was on supervisory patrol in Western Massachusetts on Jan. 3.” (Republican)
• “The state’s law enforcement oversight board has revoked the certification of a former State Police trooper who was arrested twice for suspected drunken driving and showed up impaired to a gun training session, records show. The state Police Officer Standards and Training Commission, or POST, issued its final order decertifying Todd R. Girouard on Feb. 19.” (Boston Globe; paywalled)

Other News

Bristol County District Attorney’s Office must allow DNA testing in case of man who insisted on his innocence even though he died (Dartmouth Week)

Thirty-seven years after Shawn Tanner of Dartmouth was convicted of murdering a sex worker in Dartmouth and five years after requesting DNA testing, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled on Friday, Feb. 27 that the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office must DNA test the evidence. 

The New England Innocence Project represented Tanner’s case back at the Supreme Judicial Court, after the District Attorney’s office brought it to the court to overturn a previous order from the Superior Court to test the evidence. The New England Innocence project stated that the forensic testing that put Tanner away in 1989 was proved faulty and that regardless of his death, evidence should still be tested for DNA, and has offered to cover the costs of the tests.

Report says state’s budget process for sheriffs is “deeply flawed” (WBUR)

The budget process for the state’s 14 sheriff departments is “opaque, chaotic and deeply flawed,” Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro said in a report released [February 27], laying blame on both state lawmakers and sheriffs themselves.

The report comes months after Beacon Hill lawmakers raised alarm about the sheriffs’ spending. State legislators ordered Shapiro to conduct a deep dive into spending by the county sheriffs when lawmakers agreed last year to withhold extra funding for their departments. The decision came after more than $100 million in budget overruns by the sheriffs, whose main role is to run the county jails.

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Anyway, that’s all for now.