WORCESTER – The police department in Worcester, Massachusetts has allowed officers to have sexual contact with women suspected of being involved in the commercial sex trade, a police spokesman said. reports the US Department of Justice Released Monday after a two-year investigation.
Worcester police deny the allegations and call the investigation biased.
The Worcester Police Report
The 41-page report also found that police used excessive force, including the unwarranted use of tasers and police dogs and blows to the head.
The findings raised concerns that the department is engaging in racially discriminatory policing, Justice Department officials said. Worcester, the state’s second-largest city with a population of about 207,000, is located 50 miles west of Boston.
“Excessive force and sexual misconduct by officers who are sworn to serve and protect seriously diminishes the public’s trust in sworn officers,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy for the District of Massachusetts said in a written statement.
“The actions of certain officers who engaged in this conduct are not a reflection of the many hard-working and ethical officers at the WPD who did not engage in such misconduct,” he said.
Police calls report ‘unfair’
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the department “looks forward to working with city officials to implement reforms that build on their own preparatory efforts but will fully eliminate these unlawful and unconstitutional practices.”
Brian T. Kelly, an attorney representing the police department, said police and city officials have cooperated with the federal investigation. He called the report “unfair, inaccurate and biased.”
“Rather than identifying individual officers who could – and should – be prosecuted if these serious allegations were true, the DOJ has produced a report from civilian attorneys with no prosecutorial experience that makes incredibly broad allegations but fails to identify a single corrupt officer,” Kelley said. in a written statement.
“The report is riddled with factual inaccuracies and ignores information from the city that debunks many of the anonymous claims,” he added.
A representative for Worcester City Manager Eric Batista said he expects to make a statement in the coming days.
The police are accused of excessive force
The report found that Worcester police officers “quickly escalated minor incidents by using more force than necessary,” including during encounters with people with behavioral health problems or in crisis — a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The report also includes what investigations describe as “concerns about a number of credible reports that officers sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest and engaged in other sexual misconduct; and concerns that WPD does not have adequate policies and practices in place to respond to and investigate sexual assaults by officers and others.”
Engaging in sexual contact while undercover as part of an official investigation violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, according to the report.
Recommendations from the Worcester Police Department
The report makes a series of recommendations, including improving training on the use of force, requiring officers to report misconduct, mandating the use of body-worn cameras and requiring supervisors to review footage to monitor agent performance.
The report also calls on police to provide training on permissible investigative techniques to enforce laws on the buying and selling of sex, including a complete ban on engaging in sexual contact for law enforcement purposes.
The Ministry of Justice opened the investigation on November 15, 2022.
