The U.S. Department of Justice today released a report after a two-year investigation into allegations of misconduct by the City of Worcester and the Worcester Police Department. The DOJ concludes that Worcester police engaged in a pattern or practice of civil rights abuses, including the use of excessive force and other “outrageous” violations of due process. The DOJ also raises “serious concerns” that WPD officers sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest.
Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, released the following statement:
“These alarming findings confirm once again that Massachusetts is not — and never has been — immune to police misconduct. While we welcome the Department of Justice’s report, it’s not the end of the story. We urge local officials to work together with the DOJ to adopt and implement reforms to address the egregious misconduct described in the report. We also call on local and state officials to follow up on these findings to pursue their own investigations into misconduct in Worcester. This is critical because such misconduct may undermine the integrity of numerous criminal cases in which the officers referenced in the report were involved. As the Supreme Judicial Court has made clear, the Commonwealth has a duty to investigate and disclose all exculpatory evidence — not just those examples listed in the report — to defendants whose cases may be affected. Prosecutors must now fulfill that duty.”
In 2020, the DOJ published the findings of another pattern or practice investigation, this time in Springfield. The Commonwealth’s inaction in the wake of that report prompted an ACLU lawsuit. In January 2024, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office violated its duties to disclose and inquire about exculpatory evidence of widespread misconduct by Springfield police. The court also ordered the DA to disclose in criminal cases all documents known to have been reviewed by DOJ in the production of its report.
For more information about the ACLU of Massachusetts, visit aclum.org.
