The Brady Bunch, continued
The Brady Bunch, continued
This issue is a big ol’ document dump: new Brady records, police-misconduct data, & more
Hey everyone,
This issue is a big ol’ document dump — this is The Mass. Dump, after all. Dig in.
The Brady Bunch, Continued
Brady lists are lists of police officers with credibility problems that prosecutors might need to disclose to defendants in criminal cases. The name comes from the 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, which held that prosecutors have a duty to disclose potentially exculpatory information to criminal defendants. Police departments work with prosecutors on a regular basis and an individual police officer might testify in many cases, so the lists are an important tool for protecting the due-process rights of people charged with crimes.
I’ve been working on a project to get Brady lists and related documents from all prosecutors’ offices in the state. I previously released a number of Brady records (see here and here), and today I’m publishing more documents from the Attorney General’s Office and three district attorney’s offices.
The Attorney General’s Office provided a Brady list and nearly 100 pages of additional records. However, the AGO withheld an unspecified number of other documents under the investigatory exemption, according to a letter from AGO attorney Hanne Rush. I filed an appeal arguing that Rush had not provided enough information to withhold these records.
An AGO staff member later spoke by phone with a Public Records Division lawyer and explained that the records were related to four open criminal cases in Bristol Superior Court and three in Plymouth Superior Court.
In her February decision, Supervisor of Public Records Rebecca Murray wrote that she “decline[d] to opine on these matters at this time,” citing a state regulation that allows her to deny an appeal if “the public records in question are the subjects of disputes in active litigation.” This does not mean that the supervisor determined the exemption was applicable to the records, only that she chose not to reach a decision.
The seven criminal cases involve six men who were indicted on firearm and drug charges “in connection with a major interstate gun trafficking operation” in 2020, according to a press release from the AGO. “The investigation was led by Massachusetts State Police assigned to the AG’s Office, in collaboration with MSP’s Gang Unit, MSP’s Troop D Community Action Team, the Bristol County State Police Detectives Unit and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).”
The investigation began when now-former Massachusetts state cop Matthew Kelley located seven firearms and more than 175 rounds of ammunition during a traffic stop involving two of the men. Kelley, whose name appears on the Brady list, later resigned after a medical emergency, which led the department to open an investigation for improperly stored drug evidence.
Also included on the list: a former state cop who was arrested on domestic violence charges; five Lowell police officers who filed false police reports that led to evidence in a drug prosecution being thrown out; and a former Westport detective who retired while under investigation for two alleged sexual relationships, one of which involved a rape victim he met during an investigation.
The Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office provided a very confusing response to my Brady list request.
“This office does not have a ‘list’ so to speak,” Assistant District Attorney Tara Miltimore wrote. “We are fortunate due to the size of our office and our district that we have a well-established communication network with the local police departments which allows for prompt notification of potential issues. … We are also able to access the State Police Portal which has been set up to give us direct access to potential exculpatory information regarding State Police witnesses.”
Miltimore provided “a sample of a letter [the district attorney’s office] send[s] to police departments requesting any possible exculpatory material relating to potential police witnesses” as an “example,” but she did not provide any of the records I requested.
I filed an appeal, and the supervisor determined that Miltimore had not clearly explained whether the district attorney’s office possessed any relevant records.
In response, Miltimore said that the office does not keep a Brady list. She provided a letter related to Jeffrey Day, a Tisbury police officer and former Chilmark police officer. This letter is the office’s only document relevant to my request, according to Miltimore.
I made separate records requests to Tisbury and Chilmark and received Day’s internal-affairs records from both police departments.
I believe the district attorney’s office likely possesses additional records, so I’m following up in an attempt to get them.
Earlier this year, the Essex County District Attorney’s Office provided a list of police officers who have been charged with crimes and more than 400 pages of related records, but it redacted the officers’ names and the docket numbers associated with their criminal cases. Assistant District Attorney Kristen W. Jiang cited the Criminal Offender Record Information law, which protects certain information related to people who have been charged with crimes. (The office also provided its Brady policy and a 2021 letter it sent to police departments.)
I filed an appeal, and the supervisor of public records determined that Jiang failed to demonstrate that the CORI law applies to the names and docket numbers. In response, Jiang provided a copy of the Brady list with the docket numbers, but she again redacted the officers’ names, claiming the supervisor’s interpretation of the law was “incorrect.”
I appealed again, and the supervisor determined for a second time that Jiang had failed to demonstrate the applicability of the CORI law.
Finally, Jiang backed down and provided unredacted copies of the Brady list and the other records. The moral of the story is keep filing appeals. (Please note that you will need to check out the redacted version of the records to see everything — the unredacted version only includes the records that were originally released with redactions.)
The list includes the names of several police and corrections officers who were recently charged with alleged crimes, including violent ones like assault and battery and strangulation, that do not appear to have been reported by the news media. I’ve made some records requests to see if I can learn more information.
Earlier this year, the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office released its Brady list. More recently, the office released letters it received from the Attorney General’s Office and more than 400 pages of additional material. I haven’t looked through these records very closely yet.
I’m still trying to get Brady records from the Bristol, Norfolk, Northwestern, Plymouth, and Suffolk district attorney’s offices. Expect more updates on this project in the future.
Pony Up
Making all these records requests is a lot of work. I’ve made nearly 100 so far this year. I’ve also filed more than 40 appeals, meaning I’ve made more appeals than all but two people.
If you want me to continue requesting records like mad, please sign up for a paid subscription to this newsletter. It only costs $7 a month or $69 for a full year. That’s not a big price for more government transparency, is it? If you are a monthly or yearly subscriber, send me an email if you want to be credited at the end of each issue; just let me know the name you want me to use.
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That’s Not How This Works
On March 23, I requested internal-affairs records for police officer Jeffrey Day from Chilmark, as mentioned above. Even though I specified that the records should be provided in an electronic format, Town Administrator Tim Carroll responded that the documents are paper records and that he would need to mail them and charge a fee for doing so.
I told Carroll to scan the documents. In response, he again mentioned the possibility of a fee. I explained that I would not agree to pay without first seeing a cost estimate.
Carroll disappeared until April 4, when he explained that he had been out for a medical procedure and asked if anyone else had provided me with the records. I said no, then he disappeared again.
On April 20, I filed an appeal due to the lack of a response. Two days later, Carroll sent me the records. Here is his email in its entirety:
The document is ready for you. It is now a scanned PDF (as you requested) with redactions, attached hereto. It took more than 2 hours of staff time and legal review. The cost is $50.
“The cost is $50” — very cute, but that’s not even close to how this works.
First, municipalities and state agencies must provide a fee estimate in advance. They can’t just send the records and expect to bill for them after the fact without any sort of agreement with the requester.
Second, a fee estimate has to explain the basis for the fee. It needs to specify how much personnel time was spent preparing the records — not a vague explanation like “more than 2 hours,” but the actual amount of time. It also needs to specify how much time was dedicated to each task instead of lumping it all together as “staff time and legal review.”
It’s also not clear why Carroll thinks he can charge me for a “legal review” because he did not explain the legal basis for any of the redactions made to the records. Even if he had, it’s likely that he still wouldn’t have any justification for a fee. The law only authorizes fees for redactions that are required by law. It appears that the redactions to the records were likely made under the privacy or investigatory exemptions, both of which are discretionary.
A fee estimate also needs to specify the hourly rate for each of the employees who worked on the request and confirm that they are the lowest-paid employees capable of doing the tasks they performed.
Finally, Carroll did not respond to my request within 10 business days. The law does not allow municipalities or state agencies to charge fees if they fail to answer requests in a timely manner.
Nice try, but you’re never going to see that $50, bub.
POST Data Preview
The Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, which was recently formed as a result of the state’s 2020 police-reform law, is building a public database of all police internal-affairs investigations. The database won’t be live for some time. But police departments were required to submit data to POST by the end of last year — so the information is already out there.
I sent POST a records request for a spreadsheet with all data from the Massachusetts State Police. POST refused to provide it.
POST general counsel Randall E. Ravitz wrote:
The Commission understands your request to call for the creation of a new spreadsheet that compiles all data regarding any Commission investigations into misconduct by members of the Massachusetts State Police. The Commission declines to do so. The public records law does not obligate the Commission to create a new spreadsheet of the type that you have requested.
Ravitz also claimed that all the data possessed by POST is “confidential” under a provision of the police-reform law.
I filed an appeal pointing out that providing data in a specific format, such as a spreadsheet, is not the same thing as creating a new record. I also challenged the applicability of the confidentiality provision Ravitz cited. The supervisor of public records closed the appeal after POST said it would provide a new response.
“The Commission does not possess any record responsive to your request,” Ravitz wrote in his second letter.
That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because POST released a list of law-enforcement agencies that had not submitted data as of January 13, and the State Police are not on it.
I decided to try getting data directly from police departments. I’ve requested data from more than a dozen departments, but I’ve only heard from two so far.
The Lowell Police Department provided some data, but it saved it as a PDF with the words “Public Records Request” superimposed over every page instead of a spreadsheet, like I requested. There are too many columns to fit on a single page, so the data is disorganized and difficult to analyze.
I asked the department for a second time to provide the data as a spreadsheet. Jacqueline Cooke, the department’s records access officer, wrote back:
The data was provided in that format from our Internal Affairs Department. If it is not entered and kept in an excel spreadsheet, it doesn’t have to be created in Excel to meet a records request. The woman responsible for this information is gone for two weeks. When she returns, I will follow up with her to see if this information can be provided in your preferred method.
Fact check: False. The public records law states, “The records access officer shall, to the extent feasible, provide the public record in the requestor’s preferred format.”
The Fall River Police Department also turned over data, but thankfully provided it as a spreadsheet instead of giving me a hard time. I sent the spreadsheet to a few Fall River journalists — hopefully that will prove fruitful.
I will continue to share the POST data as I receive it. If you want to see it as soon as possible, follow me on Twitter.
The Smallest Massachusetts Police Department’s Use-of-Force Policy
In January, I sent out a request for police use-of-force records to the six smallest towns in Massachusetts. Gosnold, Monroe, Mount Washington, New Ashford, Hawley, and Middlefield all have populations under 400, according to the 2020 census. The three largest cities in Massachusetts — Boston, Worcester, and Springfield — are all horrible when it comes to responding to public records requests, and I was curious how the smallest towns would compare.
Monroe, Mount Washington, New Ashford, and Hawley all quickly responded that they did not have police departments and therefore had no records to provide.
Gosnold, the smallest town in the state, did not respond until after I filed an appeal.
“At this point the Town of Gosnold does not really have a police department. Our Chief retired in 2020 and has not been replaced. I don’t believe there have been any incidents in many years,” Town Clerk Lisa Wright said.
As it turns out, the only one of the six towns with a police department is Middlefield. Town Administrator Duane Pease responded to my request by saying it would take some time to fulfill.
“Once [the police department has] reviewed [the request] and given me an anticipated cost, I will forward same to you. Middlefield is a very small community and manned by part-time employees so this will consume much of our time,” he said.
I never heard back, so I filed an appeal. Pease later sent me the department’s use-of-force policy.
However, my request asked for other records, including annual reports and data. Pease did not address this part of my request even though the policy states that the police chief is required to prepare an annual report documenting use-of-force incidents, so I sent him a follow-up email. He did not respond, so I filed a second appeal.
Finally, Pease sent me a letter from Police Chief Jenny Dion.
“I have been associated with the Middlefield Police Dept for over 12 years. In that time, we have not had a single use of force incident. We do not have any statistics or information on the subject since we have not had to use any force,” Dion wrote.
So that was pretty anticlimactic.
Tracking Police Misconduct with Media Reports
I’m building a database of all allegations of misconduct by Massachusetts police officers that are reported by the news media in 2022. You can view the database on my website here. I update it as new stories are reported, and I try to use non-paywalled articles as sources when possible. The database currently has 57 entries, some involving multiple officers. If I missed an incident or made a mistake, please contact me about it — you can read the criteria for including an incident here.
Here are old entries that have been updated since they were previously mentioned in the newsletter:
Daily Hampshire Gazette: Belchertown police lieutenant charged after allegedly secretly recording conversations and nude images of seven women in his home; lieutenant has been on paid leave during the investigation
MassLive: Two Springfield police officers given suspended sentences after being found guilty of assault and battery for beating a group of Black men outside a bar while off duty in 2015; two other officers acquitted
And here are the entries that I’ve recently added:
NBC10Boston: Retired Boston police officer and union leader pleads guilty to the rape and sexual abuse of six children, sentenced to 10 to 13 years in prison and 10 years of probation
Boston Globe: Since forming in 2021, Boston Office of Police Accountability and Transparency has received 15 complaints of officer misconduct, five of which have made it through intake process
MassLive: Haverhill police officer arrested on OUI charges after crash and put on leave from department
NBC10Boston: Mansfield police chief on paid leave for unspecified reasons
Daily Item: Marblehead police officer placed on leave after anonymous person complains to inspector general’s office that officer was skipping work and provides photos showing officer's cruiser parked in private driveway while he was on duty
Universal Hub: MBTA police officer’s civil rights and assault and battery charges continued without a finding after guilty plea; officer dragged homeless man off bus, kneeled on his back, and pushed his face into pavement, then lied to cover up assault in 2020
MassLive: Springfield Police Department pays $350,000 to settle lawsuit by former narcotics detective who alleged he was “bluffed” into resigning over incident that later led to federal charges against another detective
MassLive: Former State Police colonel and major face Ethics Commission hearing after allegedly ordering state trooper to change arrest report about judge’s daughter in 2017
Universal Hub: Stoneham police officer and brother arrested on federal fraud charges after allegedly bribing contractor to secure millions of dollars in insulation work
WCVB: Woburn police officer facing criminal charges after allegedly strangling and threatening to kill estranged wife
MassLive: Man sues five Worcester police officers who arrested him for stabbing he did not commit, alleges officers fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses to implicate him
You can read the arrest report for former Woburn police officer Tomas Morales here. You can read his resignation letter here.
MBTA Won’t Release Videos of Man Dragged to Death by Train
Last month, Robinson Lalin was dragged to death by an MBTA Red Line train after his arm got stuck in a door. His uncle Kelvin Lalin appeared on the GHB program Greater Boston, where he mentioned that the MBTA likely possesses videos of the accident.
“I realized that the station is flooded with cameras, so they have a video on file,” he said. “My family wants to see the video.”
He said the family asked to see the video but the MBTA still had not responded after a week.
I sent the MBTA a public records request for all videos related to the accident, and the agency quickly refused. It cited the investigatory exemption:
This exemption protects investigatory materials compiled out of the public view by law enforcement or other investigatory officials, the disclosure of which could prejudice investigative efforts, compromise confidential investigative techniques or identify a witness or a victim. The circumstances depicted on video responsive to your request are currently under active investigation by the MBTA’s Transit Police and other investigative authorities. Any public dissemination of this video could jeopardize the investigation for the reasons stated above.
It also cited the privacy exemption:
Due to the potentially graphic nature of the events depicted on the video, the MBTA has determined that the public interest in the release of this personal information does not outweigh the privacy interests of the individual involved.
I filed an appeal. I noted that the MBTA did not provide any reason that releasing the videos would jeopardize the ongoing investigation. I also said the public’s interest in understanding safety problems with public transportation outweigh the privacy interest, especially since the incident happened in a public setting and the victim’s family wants to see the videos.
The appeal is pending.
Please note that I have a database on my website that lists all the records I have released. I’m looking into better ways of cataloging everything, but that process is not moving very quickly at the moment.
I have some stories that I’m working on, but I request way more records than I can realistically write about in detail. I hope some of you reporters who read this newsletter — and I know you’re out there — will make use of this stuff. If you write a story using any records I publish, please send me an email so that I can share your work.
If you’re interested in joining a group that analyzes data I obtain from police departments, you should also send me an email.
And please send me tips! I mostly write about public records and police misconduct. I will write about anywhere in the state, and I’m always looking for new things to cover. If you have a frustrating story about trying to obtain public records or a story about the police that isn’t being told, tell me about it.
You can email me at aquemere0@gmail.com or send me a direct message on Twitter.
Again, please subscribe to this newsletter, send me a few bucks, share my work, etc.
That’s all for now, folks.
