Williamstown Accused of Trying to 'Crush' Critics of Police Department
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A member of the town's diversity committee Monday suggested that the town's decision to place a police sergeant on administrative leave could be a retaliatory move and that the allegations against the sergeant are less egregious than those against officers accused of under investigation for unlawfully accessing a Registry of Motor Vehicles database.
On Tuesday morning, the town manager said the town is "keenly aware of the obligation to avoid any retaliatory actions" and that the paid administrative leave is justified by the need to investigate efforts to look into new information about Sgt. Scott McGowan.
The decision on administrative leave and the revelation of the data breach involving 20 residents of the town sparked outrage on Monday night.
"I want to know why Scott McGowan is on leave because of some internal bickering when citizens have been violated in this fashion and there are people who are … the level of discipline is not commensurate with what an officer right now, who is on administrative for, I believe, doing less, causing less harm," Bilal Ansari said at the outset of the Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee meeting. "I want to know why. I hope that this is not a retaliation from [Town Manager Jason Hoch] against Scott.
"If that's the punishment that has been sent, why are not these officers held to the same standard. I have a problem with injustice anywhere. And if this is not being done across the board, I have a problem with that."
When McGowan's paid leave was announced, Hoch noted that such an action is not punitive but rather a step that will allow an investigation to take place while McGowan is not on active duty. When acting Chief Michael Ziemba last week announced the violations of the commonwealth's Criminal Justice Information System, he said the personnel involved were "disciplined" but declined to get into specifics.
Hoch indicated Tuesday that the town is not ready to announce the extent of that discipline but would do so at a later date.
"Right now, as some of the discipline has just been issued, we're respecting the appeal provision of the contract," Hoch said. "We are also putting together our report to CJIS about the incident, corrective measures implemented and discipline taken. I expect that report, when completed, will be able to be shared more broadly."
McGowan, meanwhile, has been the subject of a series of articles in The Berkshire Eagle detailing allegations of misconduct ranging back over the last 20 years; according to The Eagle's reporting, those allegations were known to the Williamstown Police Department at the time they occurred and McGowan was disciplined at the time.
Hoch said Tuesday that the recent administrative leave is connected to new information and not related to McGowan's complaint of whistle-blower discrimination raised in filings with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and, later, a federal lawsuit that McGowan withdrew in December.
"We became aware of new information that merited further investigation," Hoch said. "The decision was made to fulfill our responsibility to review those claims and is not retaliation. The town is keenly aware of the obligation to avoid any retaliatory actions.
"The administrative leave is based on new information. We continue to consider past administrative responses to all incidents in the past as closed."
Ansari on Monday night accused town and Police Department of trying to "crush" McGowan or anyone critical of the department, including residents whose personal information was accessed in the CJIS database.
"The suspension or the putting Scott McGowan on administrative leave is a direct slap in the face to any momentum going forward, and this smear campaign and personal attack against him is: If you dare come against the town, if you dare come against the WPD, this is what we'll do. We will crush you," Ansari said. "It's the same retaliation. It's the same retaliation. This going after us, the 20 [whose information was accessed] is the same retaliation. If you dare go against the system, we will crush you, even if you're a white man with white as white skin with blue eyes, we will crush you. Even if you wear blue, if you go against us, we will crush you.
"This has to stop. Stop it.
"I feel bad because Scott [McGowan] came to my house for three hours. I said, 'Scott, stop it. This lawsuit is stopping me and people in town from talking to the WPD.' … Scott had decency enough, when things changed, when [former Police Chief Kyle Johnson] stepped down, he stopped it. And, guess what? They came after him."
Hoch said Tuesday that he made the final decision to place McGowan on administrative leave in consultation with Ziemba and the town counsel.
Hoch said it is up to the Select Board to decide whether to add the investigation related to McGowan or the accessing of the CJIS database to the responsibilities of Brookline attorney Judy Levenson, who the board contracted to do an independent investigation into allegations raised in McGowan's lawsuit.
Depending on the outcome of the WPD's internal investigation, the personnel involved in the unauthorized database search could still be subject to discipline beyond what they already have received, Hoch said.
Ziemba on Friday sent a letter to residents whose information was accessed illegally, explaining that the information was "limited to name, date of birth, address, vehicle description and plate number, license number and, in some cases, Social Security number." Ziemba told the residents, "this information was not disseminated nor used or retained for any reason by the officers accessing it."
Such assurances did little to assuage the anger of members of the DIRE Committee or members of the public who spoke during its Monday meeting.
"Anybody else's sister got searched, who is listening to this right now?" said Jeffrey Johnson, a DIRE Committee member who is running for Select Board in May's town election. "That's my sister who was on the radio today. My 110-pound sister. There's nothing appropriate I can say right now. You can hear it in my voice, right?
"As I sat around on Facebook watching people go back and forth over the weekend, you know what I did? I actually started doing something. I've already talked to Ziemba, multiple times. I'm very happy that he's trying to move toward transparency. I'm going down there on Thursday with the HR information I have from the state to help develop some policies so we know who, what, when, where and why in the future. I know that things happen, but this is very personal to me now.
"Nobody should feel like this."
DIRE Committee member Aruna D'Souza criticized members of the Select Board for recently saying Hoch was "bullied" into resigning, and said that WPD personnel illegally accessing records truly is bullying behavior.
"It really needs to be said to the Select Board, who very blithely threw around the word 'bullying' at one of their recent meetings, that this is actually bullying," D'Souza said. "What the police officers did was actual bullying. The letter the police union sent in the fall accusing the DIRE Committee and other activists in town of criticizing what they seemingly believe to be their unchecked authority … and the Select Board seemingly endorsing that letter by praising the actions of the police and not standing up for the DIRE Committee or activist who were acting in fully appropriate ways that took advantage of the democratic process in this town and their ability to speak back to power — that was bullying."
D'Souza later said it is ridiculous that some in town tolerate police misconduct as alleged in McGowan's lawsuit and more recently with the CJIS breach, when there is relatively little crime and the police appear to spend most of their time "helping direct traffic."
"At this point, it feels like the Police Department is actually causing more problems than they're helping with in our town," D'Souza said. "I may be wrong about that. I may not know about secret plots to rob all our houses and tie us up and whatever that the Police Department has secretly been able to avert. But my sense right now is what we are dealing with is a Police Department that has turned our jobs into full-time jobs.
"Even just from a management point of view, that seems like a problem. If you've got a department in your town that has created so many problems that you are now full-time devoted to dealing with the problems in that department, that seems like something that needs to be dealt with."
In addition to expressing its anger over recent events at the WPD, the DIRE Committee on Monday passed a resolution calling on the Select Board to involve a member from DIRE in the selection process for advisory groups to be named this year to find a permanent town manager and a permanent police chief.
Further, the panel wants one of its members to be named to each of the search committees and that those committees, "include input from diverse community members, with particular emphasis given to recruiting and selecting members from traditionally marginalized groups."
