holyoke police corruption holyoke police corruption

In his video, Roca references alleged abuse of overtime pay. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. (WWLP) - Holyoke's Chief of Police responded to the allegations of corruption within the department, made by an officer in a widely-circulated YouTube video. Within the department, he said he had been shamed. "Holyoke has always been known as the Paper City. He added, I want to [assure] the citizens of Holyoke that they can continue to have confidence in the men and women of the Holyoke Police Department and the great work that they do every day.. I dont think the mayors office is the right place to do a criminal investigation of the police, Murphy said when asked whether the city had investigated Rocas claims. If you go behind the curtain of law enforcement, oftentimes youll hear officers say the surest way not to get a complaint is not to interact with the public, he said. Listen Each police department documented the incident and can be retrieved easily., Febo then addressed the incident in which Roca referred to an officer involving an alleged intentional boat accident. Murphy said in a phone interview Monday that he felt no pressure from anyone to terminate Roca before he left office. He said that he saved the state troopers life, only to be treated like a piece of crap afterward, getting turned down for a job with the state police. A police officer says he's on paid administrative leave for refusing to take down the 43-minute video that alleges corruption within the police department in Holyoke, Massachusetts. '"; Months later, on Nov. 10, then acting mayor Terence Murphy followed Pratts recommendation, firing Roca after a city lawyer determined that there was just cause, the Gazette reported. But he said other studies have found that civilian review boards have a minimal effect on accountability. sites. Pratt said that Roca can still present his case to the Civil Service Commission. He said when he spoke out against the alleged injustice, racism and favoritism and nepotism that he had witnessed, he was punished and shunned. Roca said his attempts to transfer to a different police department were allegedly sabotaged by the chief, and cited a single informal complaint made against him that he said ended with no investigation and him working in an administrative role for more than a month. HOLYOKE, Mass. All rights reserved, FIRST ALERT: Storm Hitting Greater Boston Live Radar, Updates. Ill probably lose my job, but Im good. In his 2016 study in the journalPolice Quarterly, Terrill and fellow researcher Jason Ingram found that in cities that had police conducting internal investigations, but where an external civilian oversight agency reviewed their decisions, the department was "significantly more likely to sustain complaints." Isaac Holyoke, director of communications at CleanSpark, said the shift made it easier for employees to communicate with each other and that employees value "autonomy and flexibility." "People are used to being at home when they can go on business when they need to, and we have kept that culture here in the office," Holyoke said. 2021 When Romero put his hand on the boys shoulder and told him to go back to his classroom, Reyes said the boy smacked the officer's hand and swore at him. Academic studies have shown its fairly common for police departments to sustain a small percentage of civilian complaints. Roca also suggests the state attorney general or the FBI should look into his claims against Febo and the department. Roca said he expected to face discipline after posting the video but was invested in calling attention to what he saw as problems within the department. Get the latest news on COVID-19 delivered to you. In an interview with the Republican, Febo disputed Rocas claims. 8. He has since been suspended for refusing to take the video down. Pyle told NEPM that police departments and other public agencies will continue to withhold records or slow-roll their release until lawmakers improve the states public records law, which many have criticized as one of the least transparent in the country. HOLYOKE, Mass One person was killed during a shooting at the Holyoke Mall Saturday night, according to the Hampden County District Attorney's office. If you need to reach our office by phone, contact us at 413-538-7118. var sellablestring3 = "STAFF FILE PHOTO"; For those reasons, Reyes cleared the officers of violating department policies. They kept trying to use the grabbing of the genitals to kind of quiet me down as a form of punishment and pain, Concepcion said. Rafael Roca, 37, uploaded the now viral video early Sunday morning. That is roughly 75% of minority officers with 8 years or more [of experience] in specialized assignments. Febos statement added, The Holyoke Police Department has a Chief, 2 Lieutenants, and 4 Sergeants who are minority in the department command staff.. And often, legal protections and collective bargaining agreements with police unions prevent those boards from interviewing officers, he added. Holyoke Massachusetts & Pennsylvania Legal Representation. tag_id.innerHTML = ''; The HPDs top brass did not respond to numerous requests for comment on this story. The benefits of learning to play READ THE REST. He said they did the same to a few teenagers in the car with him, taking one of them to the ground, putting a knee to his back and arresting him. //var LBtag_id = document.getElementById('buylinkLBHolyokePD-hg031021,ph1'); Officer Leahy made up a substantial portion of his report, the man wrote. Concepcion, who alleged that police unjustifiably yanked him out of his car at gunpoint in 2016, said he attempted to file a complaint against the officers that day, but police at the station told him they had no complaint forms on hand. Hed be gone by then.. NEPM has obtained a decades worth of civilian complaints against HPD officers and the departments own internal investigations of them. When presented with NEPMs findings, Maldonado Velez said the lack of discipline resulting from civilian complaints is just not surprising and not unique to Holyoke. Roca said Monday that he wasnt surprised to have been fired, though he said he was disappointed that no city, state or federal authorities fully investigated his allegations. I stand by the integrity of the men and women of the Holyoke Police Department and I welcome any outside agency that would like to look into any of the alleged allegations from the video, he said in a statement. Internal affairs is corrupt as can be, Roca said in his video. Roca also took issue with the fact that a Nov. 5 hearing on his case took place at City Hall without him. GAZETTE FILE PHOTO This followed years of battles between the mayor and City Council over control of the department and the effectiveness of a previous advisory panel, the Civilian Community Police Hearing Board. "Yeah, they didn't waste any time. He says he was consistently singled out for vocalizing his opposition to the police chief, made to repeat pieces of training and attacked via email for not supporting one supervisors protest against police reform. The police reform bill also required police departments to turn over data on their internal investigations to the commission, which pledged to make that information public last spring. They took my gun and my badge and kicked me out of the email system," Roca said on Monday,according to MassLive. Roca said he had performed consistently in his role as a police officer and engaged in crime fighting when others were allegedly sleeping in their police cruisers and ignoring crime. He went on to say there had been officers he knew of that were allegedly involved in drunk driving incidents, who had assaulted people with their boats who have been labeled as racist and officers who had stolen money. He went on to say there were police officers who allegedly have made an excess of $260,000 a year and no one had questioned the situation. The classic response to demonstrated police corruption Step 1: Shoot the messenger. It took the HPD more than a year and a half to turn over its 69 internal investigations, all of which the department redacted to remove information about the person alleging misconduct. Febo said that Roca misportrayed some examples of lost or stolen weapons. I stand behind the video and what I said in it.. March 15, Another was accused of sexual assault while he was off duty. Jorge Monsalve. I think the challenge with that is in most jurisdictions that have a civilian review board or some version of that, its very rare for that board to have investigatory powers, Terrill said. Holyoke Police Officer Rafael Roca suspended after posting viral video alleging corruption at the department 'Because of this video I will probably be fired': Holyoke officer alleges. Rocas video has reached over 50,000 views. . This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. "whether the employee has been guilty of substantial misconduct which adversely affects the public interest by impairing the efficiency of public service." School Comm. Holyoke Officer Rafael Roca, a former Marine hired in 2016, said in the 43-minute video . The 69 complaints that NEPM obtained are just the ones that civilians managed to file with the HPD in the first place. To tackle these questions,"I'm a Cop"directly examines the words of READ THE REST, The Boston Globe recently printed an op-ed by former Ithaca, NY mayor Svante Myrick, who talks about his own city's approach to police reform. Febo did not use any names in his statement, but addressed an incident 10 years ago where rifles were lost. }, Holyoke police officer Rafael Roca. On December 24, 2015 and January 25, 2016, HRD, at the request of the City, sent Project Advances, What Happened to the Money?' The suspended officers are listed below: Devon Bones, Holyoke Police Department Bryan Custadio, Fall River Police Department Leon Davis, Springfield Police Department Ernest Fontaine,. Two of the civilian complaints that NEPM obtained alleged that police violently arrested students in the citys schools. Roca said in his report that the driver attempted to back into a state trooper, at which point he fired his gun three times at the driver. He was deployed in 2009-2010 to Iraq where he assisted military police . During the debate, City Councilor Jos Maldonado Velez referred to the police as a gang., It literally is, he said in the meeting. Holyoke police officer Rafael Roca. It varies, obviously, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and time to time, but generally the studies have found that the sustained rate, if you sum them all up, is usually about 10%, Terrill said. This video posted online by Former Holyoke Police Officer Rafael Roca may well have been lost to history and future litigants contending with the police misconduct in Western MA if it had not been rescued by the Internet Archive (which is currently fighting off a vexatious lawsuit filed by a greedy publishing monopolist lobbying group which wants to burn down the Internet's proverbial 'Library . Who will be eaten first? In other words, having the power to question the suspect, having the power to question the officer.. The police are policing themselves., Maldonado Velez is not the first city councilor who has come under fire from Holyokes police unions. Roca also said that other officers have not been fired after breaking the law driving drunk, for example losing firearms and other misconduct. Instead of arresting the driver, Monsalve, one of a number of officers who responded, decided to park the drivers car and give him a ride back home. When you are someone who speaks up about injustice and about corrupt police officers, they label you as a liar, they label you as a dirty police officer, they label you as someone who is untrustworthy, he said. In 2016, Irving Concepcion says the Holyoke police pulled him over with their guns drawn, yanked him out of his car and slammed him down on the hood. Roca said he retired from the U.S. Marines after a lengthy career in 2016 and pursued his lifelong dream of being a police officer. So far, the commission has only suspended 19 officers statewide because they were either arrested, charged or indicted on a felony charge. A former military police officer, Terrill has for many years researched civilian complaints against police officers in cities across the country, including a2016 study that looked at departmentsin eight different cities.