A Huge Victory for Integrity and Police Accountability

It's the third time the T&G has challenged the city to court for police misconduct records in the last two decades, and it's the third time the newspaper has won.

According to the T&G, the city will not appeal Kenton-decision. Walker's The lawsuit will not establish any case law that may be cited in the future if it maintains its word. But the verdict does create a precedent in one way: it is the first time a judge has awarded punitive penalties under a component of the 2016 public records legislation. The $5,000 will be sent to the state's public records assistance fund, which was created to offer grants to municipalities to improve their information technology capabilities and develop best practices for expanding access to public records. The fund's balance has remained at zero since the 2016 law took effect, despite the fact that damages are not the only means for money to be deposited. The case began on June 6, 2018, when diligent investigative writer Brad Petrishen emailed the police department with two public records requests. One person requested records from 12 internal affairs investigations. The second request was for complaint records for 17 police officers; these documents include every internal affairs inquiry and the conclusion for each officer.

Hector Pineiro, a lawyer who has spent decades battling Worcester cops in court as a defense attorney and civil rights activist, prepared a long complaint that Petrishen was following up on. Pineiro cited several instances of major police wrongdoing in a 749-page dossier handed to local, state, and federal prosecutors, including beatings, unlawful searches, fabricated reports, staged evidence, and more. Some of the claims were connected to Pineiro's litigation.

In a 2020 interview with the New England First Amendment Coalition, Petrishen also began gathering court documents to see "if many of these accusations had anything behind them."

Detectives pulled Carl S. Johnson, a 63-year-old with no criminal history, over and arrested him in one case. They stated they had previously purchased controlled cocaine from him and that they had seen a guy briefly enter his car shortly before the stop, potentially to acquire narcotics. Despite reportedly subjecting Johnson to a humiliating body cavity check, they were unable to detect any narcotics on him.

They then seized his keys and drove nearly a mile to his house, searching it without a warrant but finding no narcotics.

A local judge dropped the charges after discovering the facts, telling a prosecutor, "There is this thing called the constitution."

"Maybe [the police] should read it."

And, according to many lawyers in the county, that's not the kind of thing a judge would just toss out there at random, Petrishen told NEFAC. Following the dismissal, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit against the city.

The city first assured Petrishen that it would disclose all of the documents he sought, with the exception of four ongoing investigations.

The city assured the writer that it would not release up any of the complaint histories after the T&G ran two articles by Petrishen explaining what he discovered from court documents.

While fighting civil rights litigation against the cops, the city took the stance that it could keep records of misconduct private. Later, the city announced that many of the investigations will be halted for the same reason.

A few weeks later, the newspaper filed a lawsuit. US Attorney Rachael S. Rollins, who had recently left her position as Suffolk County district attorney to become the state's top federal prosecutor, told the T&G in January that she wants to investigate Pineiro's allegation.