Mass law enforcement misconduct news, Oct. 19-25
Two more officers decertified, Boston police still investigating handling of detective’s two-year-old OUI case, and more
First, if you haven’t read it yet, check out my story about misconduct in Western Mass sheriffs’ offices from earlier today:
Andrew Quemere
And now, here are the media reports of alleged law enforcement misconduct in Massachusetts that I’ve tracked during the last week.
State and local
- I missed this one last week: “A mother questioned how the Chelmsford Police Department handled an investigation after a driver struck her teen daughter in the head with his truck's side-view mirror in a gas station parking lot. The driver, a brother of a Chelmsford police officer, was later charged and has agreed to an 18-month probation term in Lowell District Court.” (NBC10 Boston)
- “Dominick Boschetto, formerly an Auburn Police officer, pleaded guilty in June to paying for sex with a minor. He was decertified [in October] by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, which is required by state law to revoke the certification of any officer convicted of a felony. Separately, the POST Commission decertified Timothy Miner, formerly of the Harvard Police Department, who faced no legal trouble but was accused of untruthfulness on his recertification application and unprofessional conduct on the job.” (MassLive)
- “An off-duty Boston police detective [Greg Walsh] who appeared intoxicated and was carrying his service weapon was not arrested at the scene of a crash in East Boston in October 2024. He was never given a field sobriety test. Nearly two years later, the department still hasn’t finished investigating how police handled the incident.” (WCVB)
- “A Worcester police internal affairs investigation into a car crash involving City Councilor Kathleen Toomey found that officers who responded to the incident did not give Toomey preferential treatment. … However, the department did determine that one of the officers violated police policy by muting his body camera for the majority of the response to the crash.” (GBH)
- “Massachusetts State Police suspended two troopers, Ryan Costello and Robert Branca, with pay on [October 22] in connection to the alleged rape at the state trooper temporary housing in Oak Bluffs in August. The suspensions are tied to ongoing criminal investigations and an internal affairs probe into the alleged rape of a woman by Edward Joseph Brown, 27, who prosecutors said was visiting Costello at the time of the incident.” (Martha’s Vineyard Times)
- “In most criminal trials, it is the defense that tries to poke holes in a police investigation upheld by prosecutors. But that’s not how things have played out so far in the federal trial over the death of 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore. Former Essex County state prosecutor and Boston College law professor Margaret McLean described the dynamic in the trial of former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell as a ‘role reversal.’” (MassLive)
- “The Town of Westborough has announced that Police Chief Todd Minardi has been placed on administrative leave amid an ongoing investigation. According to the Town of Westborough, they were made aware of a service call on [October 23] that Shrewsbury police responded to involving Chief Minardi.” (Boston 25 News)
Federal
- “When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) undertook a major operation on the South Coast in September, municipal leaders and immigration attorneys were able to account for about 30 arrests … at the time. But an announcement [on October 20] from the agency claims they actually arrested more than double that — 82 people — during the operation. … Attorneys also said they had been unable to reach many clients by phone or reliably find them through ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. Information about the arrests was instead coming largely from family members, court filings, advocacy groups and word of mouth.” (MassLive)
Other news
Activists again calling for creation of civilian review board in Worcester (Telegram & Gazette; paywalled)
Local activist groups are again calling for the creation of a civilian review board after an internal affairs investigation largely cleared police officers of wrongdoing in their response to a crash involving Councilor-at-Large Kathleen Toomey.
In an interview with the Telegram & Gazette, Fred Taylor, president of the Worcester branch of the NAACP, also called for Toomey to permanently recuse herself as chair of the Public Safety Committee, which oversees matters involving the police.
Man spent 14 years in prison for murder of which he was ultimately acquitted (Telegram & Gazette; paywalled)
A jury Thursday, Oct. 22, acquitted Noel Inoa, the former security guard accused of a brutal home invasion 14 years ago in which a man was murdered, the man’s wife beaten nearly to death and his daughter-in-law left bleeding with a 10-inch knife in her neck. …
Inoa, who has been in jail since shortly after the May 2012 crime and drew a hung jury at his first trial in 2019, made the sign of the cross on his chest and hugged his lawyers as the verdicts came down.
New Bedford will not renew Stalker Camera contract with Flock (New Bedford Light)
The City of New Bedford will not renew its contract with Flock Safety for automated license-plate readers — a move that could de-escalate the controversial debate on the balance of community public safety and individual privacy rights.
The New Bedford Police Department confirmed … that it notified Flock of its decision on Oct. 8, ahead of the Nov. 12 expiration of the city’s contract with the company. …
On Wednesday, Oct. 28, The Light will host “Flock: Public Safety vs. Privacy,” a Community Conversation examining the use of automated license-plate readers. Panelists include Thody, Fall River Interim Police Chief J.T. Hoar, ACLU attorney Gideon Epstein and state Rep. Steven Owens, who has introduced statewide regulations on the technology.
The discussion will take place at Keith Middle School from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Boston Dynamics to sell robot dogs to ICE despite employee backlash (WBUR)
Dozens of Boston Dynamics employees are calling on the company to stop the sale of its AI-powered robot dogs to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Known as “Spot,” Boston Dynamics’ robots are dog-like autonomous machines with four legs that can climb stairs and do backflips. They're equipped with cameras and sensors. …
In a letter to employees, Boston Dynamics interim CEO Amanda McMaster wrote that after considering the petition, the company is standing by its decision to sell the robots to ICE.
Governor’s office fails to produce information about gifts in response to records request (GBH)
To compare how transparent each of the governor’s offices are in the six New England states, GBH News requested records for gifts received by the governor’s office and staff in the month of December 2025. Not a seemingly difficult question. …
More than three weeks after the request, not every state had provided the records. However, Massachusetts had the distinction of being the only state that couldn’t even provide a timeline of when the request might be answered. Public record advocates call it more evidence the state is an “outlier,” pointing to the need to change public records law.
Question 1 explainer: Opening up the governor and legislature’s records (Boston 25 News)
Massachusetts voters will decide whether to expand the state’s public records law to include most records held by the Legislature and the governor’s office.
Question 1 on the upcoming ballot would make most records from those two branches subject to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, similar to records that residents and news organizations can request from state agencies and local governments.
Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadura sues newspaper for not writing about him (Universal Hub)
The Belmont Voice’s new lawyer [on October 23] fired back against the Inventor of Email’s lawsuit that demands a judge make it write about him with a 26-page legal memorandum that can be boiled down to two points:
Read the First Amendment, bud;
An e-mail saying the paper wants to cover “independent” Senate candidates is not a contract, much less a binding one that a judge can enforce.
JEAN TROUNSTINE
JUST IN: The police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley as he sat in his mother’s lap in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss., in June “was justified,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office said on Monday. Her office will not charge the white officer who shot the child.
— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman.bsky.social) October 19, 2026 at 1:48 PM
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NEW: Ingram, Texas, was just rebuilding from a devastating flood when its tiny police department enrolled in ICE’s 287(g) deportation program. Within a year, cops would hand over the equivalent of 10% of the town. with @nytimes.com
— ProPublica (@propublica.org) October 25, 2026 at 9:00 AM
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