Busy Night for Williamstown Police Includes Life-Saving Moment

01:22PM / Thursday, May 15, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Police Department on Wednesday evening had its hands full with several incidents, including one that allowed officers to help save a life.

Between 5 and 9 p.m., WPD officers responded to a three-car motor vehicle accident, calls involving domestic violence and one emergency on Williams College campus where the local police were the first on the scene, Chief Michael Ziemba said on Thursday.

The evening included deployment of the department's K9 Unit for tracking and one arrest.

"While the number and types of calls are fairly typical, or what some would call 'routine' for our police department, being able to say that we were part of a small team of people who helped to bring back a young life is not something that happens to us every day."

The life-threatening incident occurred during a Williams College athletic event, Ziemba said. An athlete from the visiting team had trouble breathing and chest pains.

WPD officers administered oxygen and began life-saving CPR until an EMS personnel arrived, he said.

An automatic external defibrillator was used three times on the student.

"Thankfully, the student was conscious and responsive upon arrival at the hospital and reportedly doing well today," Ziemba wrote in a Thursday afternoon release. "It's a great feeling to be able to share good news."

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Coach John T. Allen Remembered for More than Just Wins

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
04:35PM / Wednesday, October 14, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — John Agostini says his high school football coach was the most important influence in his life except for Agostini's own parents.

And, like a good parent, John T. Allen knew how to push the right buttons.

For Agostini, that moment came not long after Allen made the Mount Greylock Regional School eighth-grader feel special by inviting him to be the only member of his class to play on the varsity team.

"After football season had ended, I encountered a different John Allen, an angry John Allen," Agostini recalled on Wednesday morning. "I was in the very small weight room we had at Greylock at that time. I vividly remember John Allen entered the weight room. He had fire in his eyes. And, worse yet, he had rolled up papers in his hands.

"The papers were a list of people who were on the honor roll. While waving those papers at me as if they were a tomahawk, he informed me that my sister's name was on that list. My name was not. Coach then proceeded to go up one side of me and down the other without giving me a chance to respond. He then stopped and, in a much calmer voice, he said something that hurt me more than anything else. He told me he was, 'disappointed,' in me. Coach Allen was not somebody I wanted to disappoint.

"At that moment, John Allen absolutely ruined my day. But looking back after all these years, I understand something: He may have ruined my day, but, in a very real sense, he gave me my life."

Agostini, a 1971 Mount Greylock graduate who served more than 20 years as a Superior Court judge, delivered the eulogy for Allen, who coached football at Mount Greylock for 39 years.

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