As I am sure you are aware, on November 22, 2022, two police officers convicted in an assault case outside of Nathan Bill’s bar that took place in 2015, and who were on suspension, were reinstated to the police force by a 2-1 vote in Executive Session of the Springfield Board of Police Commissioners, with two Commissioners absent. But my purpose here is not to discuss the correctness of the decision. What troubles me a great deal, and what bodes ill for the future, was the process.
Thus the notice of the meeting, in my view, violates the Open Meeting Law with its lack of specificity regarding what the meeting will be about. Consider what it says: “The below referenced matters (SO#19-036, SO#19-038) will be held in Executive Session pursuant to exemption #1: To discuss the reputation, character, physical condition or mental health, rather than professional competence of an individual, or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of, or complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual.” Under the Open Meeting Law, a topic is sufficiently detailed when a reasonable member of the public could read the topic and understand the anticipated nature of the public body’s discussion. Does this meet that standard? I think not.
The Open Meeting Law also requires at least summaries of the discussions at the meeting. There were many votes taken at the meeting, and several had dissenting votes by one member, but there is not even a minimal description of the disagreement. This I think is most relevant to a Motion made at the hearing that Chapter 31 of the General Laws does not apply to the reinstatement matter, which carried by a 2-1 vote.
Chapter 31 prohibits the employment or retention of any person in a Civil Service position within one year of his conviction of any crime, with certain exceptions within the discretion of the appointing authority. It seems evident that the dissenting voice – the same one who voted against reinstatement, Commissioner Fernandez – believed that Chapter 31 applied to bar reinstatement, or that the Board should not exercise its discretion to reinstate. In either case, the public, through the minutes, has a substantial interest in being made aware of the nature of that discussion, not the least because there were so many attorneys present in Executive Session, one or more of whom probably opined on the proper interpretation of Chapter 31 and/or why discretion should be exercised to make an exception in the case of these two officers and/or why Chapter 31 did not apply at all.
Consider that the following Non-Member Attendees were present in Executive Session: the City Solicitor, another Law Department attorney, two police officers from the Police Department’s Internal Investigations Unit, the two officers who were the subject of the hearing and each of their attorneys, the attorney for the Patrolman’s Union, and the Patrolman’s Union President. The three Commissioners present were Commissioners Berte, Tranghese and Fernandez; absent were Commissioners Jackson and Roldan. I have reached out to all of them, with no success.
I view this whole process with a deep sense of skepticism. As far as I can tell, there was no opportunity for the public to weigh in on this because the notice of the meeting was wholly inadequate. It lacked even the minimal transparency the law requires. One can barely understand what is going on from the draft minutes of the meeting that I was able to obtain, and the meeting itself seems heavily stacked in favor of the officers (but, again, without summaries of the discussions, one doesn’t know for sure).
However, as bad as all of this seems, my main concern is going forward, and for this I look to the wide-ranging Consent Decree entered into between the City and the United States Department of Justice, which resulted from the Justice Department’s investigation of whether the Police Department’s Narcotics Bureau engaged in a pattern or practice of unreasonable force. The investigation itself found, among other things:

1. The Community Police Hearing Board (CPHB), the civilian predecessor to the Board of Police Commissioners, “lacks the support and training it needs to make sound conclusions and determinations.”
2. Police officers perceive the CPHB as “untrained lay people who do not have the resources to competently process evidence or reach sound conclusions.”
3. The failures within the Police Department’s accountability systems were longstanding.
4. Whereas Springfield paid 5.25 million dollars in police misconduct settlements between 2006 and 2019, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Lowell, Massachusetts, cities of similar size, paid out $249,000 and $817,000, respectively.
5. There was no comprehensive in-service training on the uses of punches and strikes.

The Consent Decree of April 29, 2022, focuses on these and many other deficiencies. Paragraph 118 of the Decree requires the City to create a Board of Police Commissioners manual for administrative processes, including how to conduct effective reviews and hearings that lead to supportable decisions, and how to make decisions to impose discipline; and Paragraph 119 requires the City to provide “comprehensive training to Board of Police Commissioners (BPC) members upon their appointment, including how to make appropriate, fair and consistent discipline.” Is there such a manual, or one in process? Has there been any training? Perhaps there is a manual in process. As to training, one has to be deeply skeptical, given what we have seen so far.
Under Paragraph 121, the City agrees to ensure that the BPC “has the resources to fulfill its responsibilities, including but not limited to budget, staffing, compensation, training and capacity.” Has any of this been provided?
Discipline requirements are in Paragraphs 126-131, including that discipline must be fair and consistent and be based on the charges and available evidence and consider mitigating and aggravating factors consistently and appropriately.” Did the November 22nd hearing comport with this? We don’t know. Further, within 9 months (by January 29, 2023), there must be established a discipline matrix setting out a range of discipline for each type of violation, and any departures from recommended discipline under the matrix must be “justified in writing.”
Paragraph 182 requires the parties to the Decree (the City and the Department of Justice) to select an independent Compliance Evaluator within 90 days of the April 29, 2022, effective date, the core responsibilities of which are to develop a Compliance Plan and assess the City and the Police Department’s compliance with the terms of the Decree. The Compliance Evaluator is required to issue regular reports to the public that “explain in detail the status of the Police Department’s progress in implementing the terms of the Decree,” as well as a twice yearly report to be filed with the Court (O’Toole Associates LLC has been retained as the Compliance Evaluator).
Under Paragraph 209, the Police Department is required to develop a community outreach and public information program about the Consent Agreement, with at least a quarterly meeting open to the public, including a public comment platform.
Under Paragraph 215, after final disposition of misconduct complaints, the Police Department “shall make detailed and anonymized summaries of each misconduct investigation readily available to the public . . . in electronic form on a designated section of its website.” And within 60 days of the effective date of April 29, 2022, the “City and the Police Department will create and staff a Settlement Agreement Implementation Unit with the skills and abilities necessary to facilitate compliance with this Agreement.”
I do not know whether this has been done, but I did email City Solicitor Judge John Payne asking about implementation of various provisions that should have been implemented by now, or well on the way, and received no response.
In theory, the Consent Decree/Settlement Agreement is a powerful instrument for transforming the Police Department into one we can all trust and be proud of, one in which all of our citizens are accorded the dignity and respect they deserve, and one in which our police officers consider themselves to be treated fairly and respectfully, and are proud to serve the City. In practice, we should not rely on the Compliance Evaluator alone to make this happen. We should all be Compliance Evaluators, and make sure it happens. ■