Report finds Massachusetts police allowed officers to have sex with alleged prostitutes
The Worcester, Mass., police department allowed officers to have sexual contact with women suspected of being involved in the commercial sex trade, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released Monday following a two-year investigation.
The 41-page report also found the police department used excessive force, including unreasonable use of Tasers and police dogs and blows to the head.
Justice Department officials said the findings raise concerns about racial discrimination in the department’s policing. Worcester is the state’s second largest city, with a population of approximately 207,000, and is located 50 miles west of Boston.
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Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy said in a written statement that “excessive use of force and sexual conduct by police officers sworn to serve and protect severely undermines the public’s trust in their sworn officers.”
“The actions of some of the officers who participated in this conduct are not reflective of the many hard-working and ethical officers in the WPD who were not involved in this type of misconduct,” he said.
Christine Clark, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the department looks forward to “working with city officials to enact reforms that build on their own initial efforts, but that will fully end these illegal and unconstitutional practices.”
Brian T. Kelly, an attorney representing the police department, said police and city officials have cooperated with the federal investigation. He called the report “unfair, inaccurate and biased.”
“Rather than identify which officers could and should be prosecuted if these serious allegations were true, the Department of Justice produced a report by civil attorneys with no prosecution experience that made extremely broad allegations but failed to do so,” Kelly said. Identify a corrupt official.
“The report is riddled with factual errors and ignores information provided by the city that debunks many anonymous claims,” he added.
A representative for Worcester City Manager Eric Battista said he expects to release a statement in the coming days.
The report found that Worcester police violated the Fourth Amendment by “using unnecessary force that quickly escalated minor incidents,” including when encountering people with behavioral health disorders or in crisis.
The report also includes what the investigation described as “concerns about credible reports that officers sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest and engaged in other sexual misconduct; and concerns that WPD lacks adequate policies and practices to respond to and Investigating sexual assault by police officers and others.
The report said sexual contact while undercover as part of an official investigation violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The report makes a series of recommendations, including improving use-of-force training, requiring officers to report misconduct, mandating the use of body cameras and requiring supervisors to review footage to monitor officer performance.
The report also calls on police departments to provide training on permissible investigative techniques to enforce laws regarding the purchase and sale of sex, including an outright ban on sexual contact for law enforcement purposes.
The Department of Justice launched the investigation on November 15, 2022.
