WORCESTER – U.S. Department of Justice officials solicited public feedback and answered several questions Wednesday during a community meeting the agency convened about its findings on unconstitutional policing in Worcester.
The 90-minute meeting at the YWCA Central Massachusetts gym contrasted with a tumultuous city council meeting on Tuesday evening; no uniformed officers were present, and the crowd of well over a hundred people seemed to consist largely of reform-minded community members and activists.
Justice Department officials, several of whom helped draft the highly critical pattern-of-practice report, declined to answer questions from the Telegram & Gazette.
U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua S. Levy was not present; Mary Murrane, First Assistant U.S. Attorney in Levy’s office, answered a handful of resident questions selected from index cards for about 15 minutes at the end of the event, which were primarily devoted to breakout listening sessions to solicit input from the community to hear.
One of the questions Murrane asked was whether the upcoming presidency of Donald J. Trump would affect negotiations with the city on possible reforms.
The Justice Department often seeks binding agreements — usually a consent decree — to legally mandate changes, using the threat of filing a federal lawsuit as leverage.
However, that influence, several experts told the T&G, is complicated by the election of Trump, whose first administration avoided pursuing such decrees.
Murrane pointed out Wednesday that the Justice Department under Trump has opened a pattern-of-practice investigation into the Springfield Police Department.
Murrane noted that the Springfield investigation culminated in a consent decree in 2022. It was the only pattern-of-practice investigation opened in the country under Trump.
Murrane said the people who investigated Worcester are career Justice Department officials, including herself, who will take the same position on the case next year as they did this year.
“I can’t tell you exactly what impact the new administration will have, but we will certainly move forward,” she said. “That is our intent, and that is what we did during the last Trump administration, what we did in the Biden administration, what we will do in the next administration, and what we will do with whoever becomes president next.”
Asked about possible criminal charges against city police, Murrane emphasized that the pattern-of-practice investigation is civil, not criminal, and that the department does not comment on whether there are criminal referrals.
City police were highly critical of the Justice Department report last week and again on Tuesday, claiming it did not contain enough facts to support some of the allegations, particularly around the topic of police sexual misconduct.
At the opening of the meeting, Megan Marks, deputy chief of the special litigation division of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, highlighted the difference between the report’s findings and other concerns also raised therein.
She noted that the Justice Department has found a pattern or practice of police using excessive force, including allowing officers to have sexual contact with women while undercover.
She further stated that the concerns raised by the authors about the sexual abuse of women by police were limited to a “small number of credible reports.”
“We found no pattern or practice of sexual assault by officers,” she said, adding that she “wanted to clarify that.”
Marks also took time to describe those who contributed to the report, saying that in addition to the Washington-based Civil Rights Division and staff in Levy’s office, it included qualified police experts, including a former police chief.
The city’s special prosecutor, along with police, has claimed that the report was rushed out before Trump took office; Marks insisted on Wednesday that no political considerations played a role in the report, including its timing.
Marks said that while the report does not show that every city official is breaking the law, its conclusions, including about flawed oversight and accountability systems, are serious and must be addressed.
Police and the city’s outside attorney have demanded the Justice Department release more evidence to support the report, saying the department is failing to prove its case.
In his response to whether the Justice Department would release more information, Murrane opined that the 41-page report was “lengthy,” and said this is all the information that will be released publicly at this time.
Murrane said there would be “discussions” with police to hopefully work together on reforms, but did not say whether those discussions would involve the release of additional information.
“There is no further report that we intend to release,” she said. “It may be that there will be legal action later, and if so, further information will become public through that process.
“But this report is what the public report will be,” she said.
None of the Justice Department officials provided substantive comment Wednesday on the city or the police department’s response to their work; they said the purpose of the meeting was mainly to get feedback from residents.
Most of the time on Wednesday was spent in three breakout groups, one of which the T&G observed.
Residents of the group overwhelmingly said they believed reforms were needed in the department, including longtime civil rights attorney Hector E. Pineiro.
Pineiro said he believes the ministry’s internal affairs department needs to be revamped. The department’s leader acknowledged in a statement to the court that no accusations of excessive force had been made by the ministry between 2016 and 2022.
“The disciplinary system is broken,” Pineiro said. He proposed several other changes, including that police more rigorously investigate inmate injuries during shooting.
Also part of the group was Bil Gardiner, a city police officer from 1994 to 2004 who was outspoken in his criticism of the department.
Gardiner, a black man, told Justice Department officials that he was “removed from the department” because he would not tolerate the type of behavior described in their report.
“The culture needs to change,” he said, claiming officers too often see the public as the enemy.
Other residents of the breakaway group said they were concerned that the city’s political players would not welcome meaningful change, with one woman criticizing the city council’s Standing Committee on Public Safety for failing to provide real oversight department.
Local activist David Webb said he was concerned about City Manager Eric D. Batista’s resistance over the past year to members of the Human Rights Commission to obtain police data.
The members recently opted to hire an attorney to investigate the files, but Batista has yet to decide whether to release them.
Kevin Ksen, a longtime critic of police who attended the meeting, told the T&G afterward that he is concerned that anything short of court-ordered reforms will not lead to meaningful change.
“The only way I see change is if there is a court order and a legal requirement that will hold everyone accountable,” he said.
Justice Department officials urged people at the end of the meeting to submit comments to community.wpd@usdoj.gov, saying they expected the meeting to be the first of “many” meetings with residents would be.
They said they would consider multiple questions from residents on Wednesday and post the suggestions they heard at the meeting online in the interest of transparency.
Local lawmakers who attended the event Wednesday included Secretaries of State Robyn Kennedy and Michael O. Moore, as well as State Reps. Daniel Donahue and Mary Keefe.
Kennedy told the T&G after the event that she has spoken with the city manager since the report’s release to express her concerns, her hope that city and police leaders “lean into this” and make changes, and an offer to help in any way whatsoever. .
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: DOJ officials hear from residents about Worcester police report
