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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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Where are layoffs happening in Massachusetts?
As part of the federal The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, employers in Massachusetts with 50 or more employees are required to provide advance notice of mass layoffs.
The state publishes this data, known as WARN notices, weekly on Fridays. See recent layoff notices.
John Hancock can be reached at john.hancock@globe.com. Follow him @Hancock_JohnD.
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