The state commission charged with oversight of Massachusetts police decertified five former officers from around the state, including a former deputy police chief convicted last year of raping a teenage girl while serving as a school resource officer.
Former Hopkinton Deputy Police Chief John “Jay” Porter was convicted in June of conducting a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student off-campus between 2004 and 2005. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Porter’s decertification last month by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission means he, along with the other four decertified officers, will be permanently prohibited from serving as police officers in the state. The decertifications bring the total to 75 since the POST Commission was created in 2020.
The woman in Porter’s case did not come forward to report the assaults until 2022, MassLive previously reported. The Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office said previously the student often sought support from Porter when she was in the 9th and 10th grades, but their relationship changed when she was 15, “going from a trusted adult and student to a flirtatious, then sexual one.”
The case also implicated former Hopkinton Police Sgt. Timothy Brennan, who was fired from the department for not reporting Porter to law enforcement after the victim confided in him about the assaults. She first informed Brennan of her inappropriate relationship with the former deputy chief in 2017 and told him not to report Porter, saying she would deny the information if he did so. She ultimately came forward to the district attorney’s office at his encouragement.
According to the decertification order released Dec. 19, Porter did not respond to mailings from the commission or defend himself against its allegations.
The commission redacted information from its decertification order detailing the misconduct allegations against Porter. In past cases, the board has redacted information covering criminal charges against officers or their personal information.
State Police Trooper Calvin Butner
Retired Massachusetts State Police Trooper Calvin Butner of Halifax was also decertified in December after he pleaded guilty last year for his role in a bribery scheme to provide Commercial Driver’s License credentials to unqualified applicants.
Between May 2019 and January 2023, authorities say, Butner and three others within the State Police Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) Unit, which is responsible for administering CDL skills tests, agreed to give passing scores to at least 17 applicants, regardless of whether they passed the test. In exchange for the passing grades, the troopers involved in the scheme received thousands of dollars in gifts and services, MassLive previously reported.
Authorities say Butner gave passing scores to three people who failed the test and five who did not take the test at all. He was sentenced in August to three months in federal prison followed by one year of supervised release, with the first three months in home confinement.
Butner did not respond to the POST Commission’s communications or defend himself.
Hull Police Sgt. Scott Saunders
Scott Saunders, a former Hull Police Department sergeant, was also decertified in December, and the related decertification order was redacted. Saunders was charged in 2023 with assaulting his 72-year-old neighbor, with whom he had a reported history of disputes. The case in Plymouth District Court was continued without a finding in August, allowing it to be dismissed if Saunders meets the conditions of probation.
The neighbor told the media at the time that Saunders hit his car with a paddleboard as he drove past him that day. When the neighbor got out of the car to confront the sergeant, he said Saunders pushed him down and punched him.
The Hull Police Department immediately placed Saunders on leave after the incident.
Saunders did not respond to the POST Commission’s communications or defend himself. MassLive was unable to contact Saunders for comment.
Greenfield Police Officer Christopher Hewitt
The reasons behind the decertification of former Greenfield Police officer Christopher Hewitt are unclear. Much of the commission’s December decision was redacted.
The POST website cites a section of Massachusetts General Laws that says, “The commission shall immediately suspend the certification of any officer who is arrested, charged or indicted for a felony.”
Hewitt also did not respond to the commission’s allegations against him. MassLive was unable to contact Hewitt for comment.
Peabody Police Officer Gerald Fitzgerald
The final officer decertified last month, Gerald Fitzgerald, formerly of Peabody Police Department, signed an agreement with the commission to have his certification permanently revoked and waive his right to contest the facts of his decertification in the future.
Fitzgerald was accused of falsifying an incident report from a November 2023 armed robbery by writing that a female suspect had assaulted two people at the restaurant where the robbery took place.
After being instructed by a supervisor to review the surveillance footage from the incident to verify his account, Fitzgerald said he had done so and added more information to the report.
Another detective who later viewed the footage determined the allegations that led to the assault charges against the female were false. Fitzgerald admitted he had not watched the entire footage as instructed, and the assault charges against the suspect were dropped.
According to the decertification agreement, Fitzgerald had previously faced disciplinary action on four occasions since 2015 for missing court dates, not completing required training and showing up to firearms training while intoxicated.
Stoughton Police Deputy Chief Robert Devine
The POST Commission voted last month to decertify Robert Devine, a former Stoughton deputy police chief accused of misconduct involving Sandra Birchmore, MassLive previously reported.
Birchmore, who was 23 and pregnant, was found dead in her Canton apartment on Feb. 4, 2021. Her death was initially ruled a suicide, but on further investigation, it was ruled a homicide. Former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell has since been charged federally with killing Birchmore to hide a sexual relationship they began after she joined a police youth program as a teenager.
The commission accused Devine, who oversaw the program, of coordinating a “sexual encounter” with Birchmore while he was on duty in December 2020. He has not been charged criminally in connection with the case and denied the POST Commission’s claims against him.
State lawmakers established the oversight commission in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The nine-member board, appointed by the governor and attorney general, has broad power to set standards that all law enforcement agencies and officers in Massachusetts must abide by and to investigate and decertify police officers accused of misconduct.
Many of the officers it has decertified have been convicted of criminal charges, automatically leading to the loss of their certifications. However, the commission can also decertify officers it finds liable for egregious but noncriminal misconduct.
The commission reports the names of decertified officers to a national registry, a move intended to alert departments in other states to their troubled histories.
If you are a victim of sexual assault, you are not alone.
Rape Crisis Centers in Massachusetts offer free, confidential services for adolescent and adult survivors as well as their loved ones.
Crisis centers operate a 24/7 toll-free hotline for phone counseling, questions and referrals. For a full list of regional crisis centers, click here.
- SafeLink offers a 24/7 toll-free hotline:
- (877) 785-2020
- (877) 521-2601 (TTY)
