A Woburn Police Officer has been placed on go away as division management and the Middlesex District Attorney examine allegations that he helped to plan the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that resulted within the killing of a counter protester.
“What was said and done in Charlottesville is 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,” Chief Robert Rufo Jr. mentioned in a Thursday assertion saying that Officer John Donnelly had been positioned on paid administrative go away.
In the assertion, Rufo disclosed that he had “recently learned” that Donnelly “allegedly participated in and was active in the planning of the so-called ‘Unite the Right’ rally” wherein white nationalist and neo-nazi teams, in addition to the Ku Klux Klan, participated.
“The Charlottesville rally is a dark moment in our history, and deeply disturbing,” mentioned Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin. “The City of Woburn is taking these allegations seriously by investigating the incident thoroughly and I will move to terminate Officer Donnelly if the investigation concludes that the allegations are accurate.”
On Friday, Middlesex DA Marian Ryan issued a press release that her workplace can be reviewing each case Donnelly had been part of and that the workplace is “acutely aware of the way in which these allegations tear at the fabric of trust which exists between communities and the police departments which serve them.”
“Our office is now thoroughly reviewing any pending or closed cases in which officer Donnelly was involved,” Ryan wrote within the assertion. “We will be issuing a discovery notice disclosing this matter to defense counsel on those cases.”
The rally, held in August 2017, claimed the lifetime of anti-racism activist Heather Heyer when a rally organizer and fan of Adolph Hitler, James Alex Fields Jr. rammed by means of a crowd of counter-protesters along with his automobile. He was sentenced to life plus 419 years for Heyer’s demise. Two Virginia State Police troopers — Trooper Berke Bates and Lt. H. Jay Cullen — additionally misplaced their lives in a helicopter crash whereas monitoring the rally.
Civil rights observers issued statements to help the investigation into Donnelly’s alleged actions.
Robert Trestan, the regional director of the New England Anti-Defamation League, mentioned “Unite the Right was the largest and most violent public assembly of white supremacists in decades” and that “The revelations that a member of the Woburn Police Department is under investigation for allegedly planning and participating in that heinous and violent assembly should concern us all.”
Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, the manager director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, mentioned that “If the allegations brought against this officer prove to be true, the department should take appropriate action, up to and including termination.”
“Anyone who allegedly holds racist and antisemitic views, and acts on those bigoted views, is clearly unfit to protect and serve a diverse community as a member of law enforcement,” Amatul-Wadud mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”