The state’s legislation enforcement licensing fee decertified a former Woburn police officer accused of serving to plan a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., a transfer that provides the cop’s title to a nationwide database of decertified officers.
It is the primary time the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission has decertified an officer underneath a 2020 police reform legislation that was created and handed within the wake of George Floyd’s dying by the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
New information launched Monday present that former Woburn cop John Donnelly entered right into a “voluntary decertification agreement” with the POST Commission that was signed by POST Commission Chair Margaret Hinkle final month.
“The respondent John Donnelly has entered into a voluntary decertification agreement under which he has agreed to the revocation of his certification as a law enforcement officer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the entry of his decertification in the National Decertification Index,” the order reads, referring to a nationwide registry of officers whose certifications or licenses have been revoked due to officer misconduct.
Donnelly was at first placed on go away in October 2022 because the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office investigated allegations that he helped plan a 2017 white supremacist rally that led to the dying of a counterprotester.
Woburn Police Chief Robert Rufo Jr. mentioned on the time that his division had “recently learned” that Donnelly “allegedly participated in and was active in the planning of the so-called ‘Unite the Right’ rally.” White nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan participated within the rally.
Donnelly resigned from his submit solely days after he was suspended and “prior to the conclusion of its internal investigation into this matter and prior to the imposition of any discipline,” in line with the POST Commission.
A spokesperson for the Woburn Police Department referred the Herald to an October assertion from Rufo, who mentioned Donnelly’s actions are “in direct opposition to the core values of the Woburn Police Department, to serve all members of our community equally and treat them with dignity and respect.”
MassCop, which is listed as representing Donnelly, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The POST Commission began a “preliminary inquiry” into the allegations towards Donnelly on Nov. 22, 2022. A month earlier, a reporter from HuffPost.com and a gaggle known as Ignite the Right “both publicly alleged that [Donnelly] engaged in misconduct and/or is unfit to be a police officer in Massachusetts,” the POST Commission mentioned in an overview of the case that Donelly signed on March 26.
Donnelly waived his rights to contest the order or ask for additional administrative or judicial proceedings with the POST Commission.
The POST Commission additionally refused to recertify the policing license of Michael Brennan, who was employed as a part-time deputy sheriff by the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office in 2008, as a result of his title was listed on the National Decertification Index.
“It is undisputed that Mr. Brennan consented to have another jurisdiction list his name in the NDI and admitted to having conducted an improper search for information using Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) while employed as an officer in Massachusetts,” a POST Commission doc mentioned.
After serving for years in Massachusetts on the sheriff’s workplace, the United States Marshals Service, and as a particular police officer in Rockland, Brennan sought employment with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona in 2021.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office forwarded Brennan’s file to their native POST Board after providing him a job, which discovered a “suspected violation” of their certification guidelines. He was denied the job as a result of he answered “yes” on a polygraph check when requested if he had ever damaged the legislation.
“Mr. Brennan disclosed during the interview that in 2015, while volunteering with the Rockland Police Department, he accessed CJIS to search for the address of the mother of his then-girlfriend,” paperwork from the Massachusetts POST Commission mentioned. “Mr. Brennan asserted that the two women were estranged and the girlfriend was concerned for her elderly mother’s well-being.”
Brennan was later added to the National Decertification Index by the Arizona POST Board.
Attorney Peter Noone of Avery Dooley & Noone confirmed that he represents Brennan however didn’t instantly present a remark when reached by cellphone.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”