Mass law enforcement misconduct news, June 29-July 5
Thoreau said that when he read The Boston Herald, he “heard the gurgling of the sewer through every column”
Henry David Thoreau said that when he read The Boston Herald, he “heard the gurgling of the sewer through every column.” I had a similar experience more than 170 years later when reviewing a July 1 Herald article that summarized recent rants by Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association.
Calderone said that crime is increasing in Boston and that the solution is for the city to hire 600 more police officers. Citing two anecdotes, Calderone complained that Boston is “just a few extra shootings away from becoming like Chicago.” He said he was worried Boston would devolve from a “great city” into a “garbage city” like Chicago and Baltimore—both of which have large Black populations, a fact that’s probably just coincidental to how he views them.
But halfway through the article, we learn something interesting. As it turns out, homicides in Boston are down so far this year compared to the same period in 2025. And about two thirds of the way through the article, we learn this:
When asked about the criticism, BPD spokesperson Mariellen Burns told the Herald the city is “at half the homicides we were at this point last year,” halfway through the year. The Herald reported last month that there were seven homicides, as of mid-June, compared to 16 by that time last year.
Homicides aren’t just down—they’re down by more than half!
Despite this vital piece of context, the article—which is titled “Boston trending away from safest major city to crime-ridden Chicago ‘garbage,’ police union leader says”—leads with Calderone’s objectively false narrative. That’s probably because it aligns with the Herald’s reactionary politics and history of demagoguing about street crime.
Calderone’s response to the inconvenient fact that homicides are significantly down compared to last year was to claim that if more people had been murdered, then the number of homicides would have gone up thus making him right (???):
[Calderone] pushed back on metrics used by the police and city officials to determine safety. Homicides may be down this year again, Calderone said, but that’s “because the 15 people that have been shot in the last four weeks didn’t die.”
Calderone is trying to frighten people because he is a cop who represents other cops and wants the city to throw more money at the police department. He represents a special-interest group that wants resources, and scaring people about crime is his strategy for building political support for that goal.
Where did Calderone come up with the number for the supposed police shortage? Why 600? Is there some objective, agreed-upon method—based on the city’s population, trends in reported crimes, and other relevant factors—that he used to arrive at this number? If there is, it’s not mentioned in the Herald article. It seems like he pulled the number out of his ass just like he did with his narrative that crime is out of control in Boston.
Six hundred extra Boston cops could cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and that’s before you factor in more administrative costs, more people being put in jail on minor charges, more lawsuits, and other indirect costs. It would be a ridiculous waste of money in addition to harming lots of people.
Even if crime were going up, it would not necessarily follow that hiring more police officers or giving more money to the police department would help. Another possibility would be that the police had failed to prevent crime and spending more on them would be ineffective. Police often try to have it both ways—if crime is going up it means we need to give the cops more money, but if crime is going down it’s because cops have done such a great job and therefore we need to give them more money. If we always gave them what they wanted, every public cent would go to them and every other public service would be shut down.
Police misconduct news
Here are the media reports of alleged law enforcement misconduct in Massachusetts that I’ve tracked during the last week.
State and local
- “Canton officials released an internal affairs report on former Sgt. Sean Goode [on June 29], offering a stinging rebuke of the former police officer whose slur- and expletive-laden messages targeted a startling span of ethnic groups, minorities, and other protected classes. … In other messages, Goode appeared to discuss sleeping on the job, encouraged bribes, and shared sensitive police information with acquaintances, the report states.” (Boston.com)
- “A Middlesex Superior Court judge has confirmed the identities of a current and former Massachusetts State Police sergeant being criminally investigated in connection with the concealment of a third sergeant’s role in a fatal crash in December 2023. In a [June 29] order denying a motion to dismiss a murder case investigated by Sgt. Scott Quigley, Judge Christopher Barry-Smith revealed that retired Lt. Anthony Delucia and Sgt. Mark Delaney were the subjects of an ongoing criminal investigation.” (MassLive)
- “A video of a pair of Massachusetts State Police troopers went viral … after footage of their one-sided bar fight was posted on social media. … Now, Quincy police are investigating the [June 26] fisticuffs, according to the Norfolk DA’s office. … The Herald has learned that both MSP troopers were assigned to the Suffolk DA’s office in the elite SPDU unit.” (Boston Herald) “The Herald has now learned that Mass State Police has reported the investigation to the state’s disciplinary board. … Both of the staties remain certified, as the process to revoke or suspend an officer’s certification can take some time.” (Boston Herald)
- “A Barnstable police officer resigned in February after an outside investigation upheld allegations that he showed another employee a pornographic video. Nolan O’Melia, formerly a canine officer for the Barnstable Police Department, was placed on administrative leave on Sept. 6, the same day a female police employee told command staff that he had sexually harassed her.” (Cape Cod Times; paywalled)
Federal
- “[Margarita] Melgar’s case is unusual. She still has a pending motion to reopen her immigration case before the highest court in immigration decisions — the Board of Immigration Appeals. Immigrants with pending cases are usually free to remain in the United States. Melgar was also officially given less than 72 hours to leave the country after the board denied one of her attorney’s motions, a stay of removal. ‘I’ve never seen this before,’ her attorney Sara Nael said of the board’s decision to not allow Melgar to stay while her motion is being considered.” (GBH)
- “In an order posted shortly after noon, a Boston federal judge [on July 2] gave ICE until 6 p.m. to release a Dominican man they stuck in the Plymouth County jail because it was unable to provide any justification why it had grabbed him in the first place, except that it found a cell to put him in.” (Universal Hub)
Yet another example of the Plymouth County jail illegally detaining someone on behalf of ICE. It’s important to understand that Massachusetts could easily stop this by passing a law banning county sheriffs from working with ICE. Unfortunately, the state’s pro-ICE Governor Maura Healey does not seem to care that the Plymouth County sheriff is constantly holding people unlawfully. In January, Healey was dismissive when asked why legislation she proposed would not ban this practice, calling it a “county issue.”
Andrew Quemere
Other news
Poll shows most Mass residents believe there are systemic problems with police (MassLive)
A new poll has found that nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts residents believe police misconduct highlighted in the Karen Read case is evidence of a more systemic issue with law enforcement in the Bay State.
Even more of the hundreds of residents surveyed in the University of New Hampshire poll believe police “definitely or probably” concealed evidence in the Read case.
Boston civilian-review board issues recommendations about body camera videos, involvement with feds (Boston.com)
[Boston’s civilian-review board, the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT)] recommended releasing bodycam footage of “critical incidents” to OPAT within seven days of their occurrence and to the public within 30 days “after consulting family members of the alleged victims and survivors.” These situations are defined by OPAT as “incidents involving the on-duty discharge of a firearm by a BPD officer or employee, as well as police use of force that results in serious injury or death,” according to [a June 8] memo. …
Though the memo leads with bodycam recommendations, the bulk of the four-page document addresses the Boston Police Department’s relationship with federal law enforcement activities. The named federal agencies include the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Two Mass Republicans lose spots on ballot over allegedly forged signatures
This is my favorite news story from last week (State House News Service):
After holding hearings on signature fraud complaints, the State Ballot Law Commission ruled [June 26] that Republican lieutenant governor candidate Anne Manning Martin and Michael Walsh, who’s running for attorney general, are ineligible to appear on September’s primary ballot.
Opponents of the two statewide candidates filed complaints alleging that they had filed hundreds of fraudulent nomination signatures — and thus did not secure the necessary 10,000 certified signatures to appear on the ballot. …
The commission found that 657 of Manning Martin’s certified signatures from Weymouth appeared in the exact same order as they did on both nomination papers for Walsh and [a] voter list [the Republican Party manages].
It gets funnier:
[The signature gatherer, Joe] Bronske[,] was noticeably absent from the hearings. [Attorney Dan] Winslow said that Bronske was deposed and invoked his Fifth Amendment right in response to all questions surrounding whether he forged signatures and copied from a Republican voter list.
Bronske said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right if he were called to testify, according to Winslow.
In its decision, the commission said that given Bronske was likely the signature gatherer for the challenged signatures it would take an “adverse inference” against him as a result of his refusal to answer questions.
But wait, when The Boston Globe started looking into this story, it got even funnier (Boston Globe; paywalled):
[A dozen people,] in interviews with the Globe, said they did not sign nomination papers for Manning Martin or Michael Walsh … even though their signatures — tied to their current or former addresses in Weymouth — appear on documents submitted by the two Republicans’ campaigns. …
A signature purporting to be from Teresa Donnelly appeared on one of Walsh’s signature sheets.
“I didn’t write that,” Donnelly said. “I don’t even vote.”
“Gov. Maura Healey, correctly sensing the growing disillusionment in this state and across the country with the proliferation of disruptive data centers, has decreed the state won’t accept any more applications for tax incentives to spur their construction until further notice.” #mapoli
— Andrew Quemere (@andrewqmr.bsky.social) July 5, 2026 at 4:13 PM
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Even when a forensic discipline is based on science, it's never 100 percent reliable—because there's always the possibility of misconduct.
— Andrew Quemere (@andrewqmr.bsky.social) June 29, 2026 at 10:15 AM
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Now that the government’s persecution of trans people has gone beyond sports and medicine for teens, where are all the people who insisted they weren’t "anti-trans" but just had some “reasonable concerns"? www.readtpa.com/p/reasonable...
— Parker Molloy (@parkermolloy.com) July 1, 2026 at 2:15 PM
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