Media copies redacted

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF


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WORCESTER— The Worcester Police Department intends to release redacted copies of citizen complaints against Officer Mark A. Rojas this week, according to a press release issued yesterday afternoon by Chief Gary J. Gemme.

The press release included three sample pages from Officer Rojas’ roughly 1,500-page internal affairs file, one page of which was entirely blacked out.

The other two pages, which were less heavily redacted, involved a citizen complaint against Officer Rojas for allegedly punching a man in the mouth and then punching and kneeing him on the ground as he was taken into custody by several officers for allegedly shouting profanities at a carload of people who turned out to be undercover police officers. Officer Rojas was assigned to the gang unit at the time, according to the documents.

The man’s complaint was deemed unfounded by the Internal Affairs Division after an investigator wasn’t able to reach the man who had filed the complaint and a witness told the investigator by telephone that he did not see any officer kick, knee or punch the man who was arrested, according to the documents.

The names of the man who filed the complaint and the witness were blacked out, as were some seemingly innocuous details such as the location and date of the incident, as well as the dates of the investigation.

The Telegram & Gazette initially requested Officer Rojas’ internal affairs file in April and paid the Police Department $1,500 for the records on Aug. 28.

Officer Rojas has been the subject of at least four complaints lodged by citizens alleging misconduct ranging from brutality to threatening a former girlfriend’s husband to firing his police handgun at a dog in a home in which children were present.

In previous interviews and in yesterday’s press release, Chief Gemme argued that the state public records law does not require the release of public records within 10 days as maintained by the T&G. The newspaper’s request for complaints against Officer Rojas is complicated by the fact that the records must be scoured for health care information, criminal histories and other information protected from release by other laws, according to the press release.

Such information will be blacked out of the released records, according to the press release. A department spokesman couldn’t immediately say last evening what privacy interest had required the department to redact every word on one of the three pages other than the Police Department letterhead.

“Under normal circumstances it is not unusual for a request of this magnitude to take months to comply with, and the past several months have not been routine,” Chief Gemme wrote in the press release.

The department’s Bureau of Professional Standards, formerly called Internal Affairs, has been investigating alleged abuse of court overtime pay by a handful of officers. City Manager Michael V. O’Brien has said he instructed the chief to make the court overtime probe the top priority of the Bureau of Professional Standards.

City Councilor-at-Large Frederick C. Rushton, who has expressed concern on the floor of the City Council about the delay in releasing the records, yesterday said he was relieved to see that the file finally would be turned over this week.

“The chief picking up the pace on delivery of the records strengthens my already strong opinion of him,” Mr. Rushton said. “We’re still going to disagree whether eight months in total, three months since they got the check, fits an exception of the rule established by the Supreme Judicial Court.”

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state Department of Education had to turn over electronic records to The Boston Globe within the 10-day statutory limit even though the department said it wasn’t finished correcting errors in the data. However, the high court said it wasn’t ruling in that case on whether there might be other situations in which a delay was warranted.

The Police Department press release accused the T&G of distorting the department’s position in news stories and columns published about the records dispute.

“The T&G interest was to polarize the debate as they minimized the complexity and challenges faced by the police department and the reality of the so-called 10 day deadline for producing a public record,” the chief wrote.

Police spokesman Sgt. Kerry F. Hazelhurst said the department intends to turn over the file on Thursday after one last review to ensure that no nonpublic information is disclosed.


http://www.telegram.com/article/2008...812020650/1101

Friday, December 5, 2008 Union holds up release of records

Request delays newspaper review of complaints

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF


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WORCESTER— Police Chief Gary J. Gemme yesterday backpedaled on his publicly announced plan to turn over Officer Mark A. Rojas’ internal affairs file this week.

Chief Gemme said he fully intended to release the records to the Telegram & Gazette Wednesday — until a lawyer for the patrolman’s union contacted him with an eleventh-hour request to review the 1,508-page file before it was given to the newspaper.

“It was unexpected,” he said.

Even so, Chief Gemme said, he agreed to the union’s request, which will postpone release of the documents until at least Dec. 11, in part to preserve morale in the Police Department and his relations with officers.

“I know that under the law, there’s not an obligation, but I think when you have 560 employees … I think I really have an obligation to honor their request in fairness to the officers and the rest of the employees,” the chief said.

The T&G initially requested copies of citizen complaints against Officer Rojas in April and paid the Police Department $1,500 for the records Aug. 28.

City Councilor-at-Large Frederick C. Rushton, who on Monday praised the chief’s decision to “pick up the pace” on providing the public records, was taken aback by the new delay.

“This is bewildering. The union has a right to make the request, but the city manager and the chief have to obey the law,” Mr. Rushton said, adding that the chief’s decision to allow a third party to hold up a request for public records is a bad precedent.

“I hope the mayor and the other council members will join me next week in asking the city manager to do the right thing,” Mr. Rushton said.

Police spokesman Sgt. Kerry F. Hazelhurst said a lawyer for the New England Police Benevolent Association Local 911, which represents the department’s officers, won’t be able to review the redacted file until Dec. 11.

Chief Gemme said he now intends to release the file as soon as possible after union lawyer Gary G. Nolan reviews it at police headquarters Dec. 11. The chief said he has put the union on notice that he won’t further delay releasing the records past Dec. 18.

Officer Edward T. Saucier, president of the union local, said the organization simply wants to protect one of its members from any unwarranted invasion of privacy.

“We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence, that any individual officer’s rights are being protected, if we didn’t review it,” Officer Saucier said. “Once whatever it is gets released, the damage is already done. There’s a possibility that there’s private information that could be released. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The thick file already has been scoured several times to remove the names of witnesses, medical information, criminal histories and any other information protected from public release, Chief Gemme said. Such information was blacked out in the copies that were set to be turned over to the newspaper yesterday.

“I believe all the redacting that we did will satisfy them,” Chief Gemme said.

He said any information that isn’t specifically exempt from release under the law won’t be redacted at the union’s request.

“There will have to be some foundation in law, or else it’s going to have to be released,” he said.


http://www.telegram.com/article/2008...812050697/1101

Thursday, December 11, 2008 Police records redacted into big black hole

Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com
T&G STAFF



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Linked articles:


» Court may decide police file release


Well, you get what you pay for.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of this newspaper’s interminable battle with the Worcester Police Department over a request we made in April to release the internal records of a cop who’s been the target of citizen complaints.

Tuesday, after months of haggling, Police Chief Gary Gemme finally turned over the records. All 1,508 pages of them. But we’ll have to take him at his word that these records belong to Officer Mark Rojas, because the redactors went a little nuts with the magic marker. Frankly, I haven’t seen so much black space since the Discovery launched into orbit.

Of the 10 cases that were handed over, four were completely redacted. Every page, name, date, location, preposition and apostrophe. They even blacked out the WPD letterhead, leaving us to wonder exactly what privacy concerns were being protected. I mean, most of us are aware that the WPD exists, right?

But hey, didn’t Chief Gemme originally demand $4,092 for the records? Only after City Manager Michael O’Brien stepped in and slashed the price to a more reasonable $1,500 (“I’m selling it all! I’ve gone insane!”) did we fork over the check. Now, we’re stuck with the bargain equivalent of a cheap used car with a busted engine.

On Tuesday, Chief Gemme said such heavy redactions were necessary to protect the privacy rights of police and citizens who file complaints. He said several complainants or their lawyers came forward after the newspaper sought the records and asked that their cases not be made public.

“My concern is the integrity of the investigations and not inhibiting people from coming forward,” the chief said.

Well, it’s a noble goal on its face and makes for good PR, as is the letter he wrote in August to everyone who filed a complaint against Officer Rojas, asking if they had any objections to their file being released.

“If you do respond, I intend to honor your request and not release the contents of the file to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette,” the chief wrote. The only problem is that citizens named in such records have no veto power over their release.

On Tuesday, I asked Chief Gemme why privacy concerns would not have been met by simply redacting the names of complainants and any identifying information — as is done in similar cases — as opposed to the wholesale blanket redaction of some 776 pages.

“We’re honoring the request for privacy,” he said. “This issue hasn’t been decided by the courts.”

Well, yes and no. Even though the state Appeals Court sided with this newspaper five years ago over a similar records dispute and ruled that access to internal affairs files “promotes the core value of trust between citizens and police,” the chief is correct that the public records law is somewhat muddled. In other words, it lacks teeth and enables custodians of public records to argue vague exemptions as they see fit.

Still, such blanket redactions run afoul of the law and shamelessly flout its purpose — to make government records accessible to the public.

“The majority of internal affairs documents are public and should be released to the public with minimum redactions, including a written index of what you’re redacting and under what exemption you’re relying on,” Alan Cote, state supervisor of public records, said yesterday. “The chief has the right to redact anything that would identify a witness or a victim.”

He added, “People who file records with the public must understand that these records are public.”

The chief, meanwhile, must understand that stonewalling a legitimate request for public records serves neither his department nor the public’s understanding of how it works. Gary Gemme is a smart man and a fine leader, but he is woefully misguided on this issue. I don’t believe, as some suggest, that he is trying to protect a rogue cop from public scrutiny. But the obstinate manner in which he has handled this request belies both his track record and purported goal of transparency.

“I absolutely support the public’s right to know,” the chief said. “Absolutely, the public has been served.”

It sure has. But exactly what it’s been served will now be a question for the courts.


http://www.telegram.com/article/2008...008/NEWSREWIND

Jeez, why would you use the media man. we all know how they take things out of context. Damn. Why not handle it internally.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 Worcester police release 1,500 pages of officer's file

Rojas cleared of complaints, or not — police aren’t saying

By Thomas Caywood and Jay Whearley TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
jwhearley@telegram.com


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WORCESTER— One man accused Officer Mark A. Rojas of savagely punching and beating him in the face with a flashlight, slicing his lip open and bruising his face, while he was in handcuffs in the back of a police wagon.

Officer Rojas told police internal affairs investigators the man was combative and that he “lost footing, tripped, and fell face first into the partition and floor of the interior of the wagon, causing his lip to bleed as a result.”

But another officer present at the arrest, Officer Thomas Hastings, reported to internal affairs that the unruly suspect “began to bang his head and face against the interior walls of the wagon.”

The parts of the police internal affairs form that list the disposition of the man’s complaints were scratched through with a black marker in a copy provided to the Telegram & Gazette.

In a different incident, another citizen accused Officer Rojas of punching him in the face while he was being taken into custody and then continuing to punch and knee him while he was on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Officer Rojas reported to his superiors in that case that he never punched, kicked or kneed the man. The veteran officer, a onetime member of the gang unit, was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Those are two of the allegations against Officer Rojas contained in a heavily redacted 1,508-page internal affairs file turned over to the Telegram & Gazette yesterday afternoon.

The records cover 10 internal affairs cases and contain at least 15 specific allegations of misconduct — ranging in severity from discourtesy to assault and battery — made against Officer Rojas during his 12 years of wearing a badge in the city.

In each of the complaints in which it is possible to discern the findings of the investigation, the allegations against Officer Rojas were deemed by internal affairs investigators to be false or otherwise unfounded.

The names of complainants, dates of the alleged misconduct and dates of the resulting investigations were blacked out.

The T&G wasn’t able to determine exactly how many allegations of misconduct have been lodged against Officer Rojas because four of the 10 internal investigation cases turned over by police yesterday were almost completely redacted.

Hundreds of pages were completely blacked out. In total, 776 pages contained little or no information.

Government officials are permitted under the state Public Records Law to black out, or redact, certain information that is protected from release by law, such as criminal histories and health care data.

Police Chief Gary J. Gemme said yesterday that rather than redact specific protected information, he chose to completely redact nearly every word of some files at the request of the people who had lodged the complaints against Officer Rojas.

“We received requests, and in some cases demands, by complainants and their attorneys that we not release any information related to their complaint,” Chief Gemme said.

The state Appeals Court has ruled that police internal investigation files, including officer reports and witness interview summaries, are public records. In a key ruling five years ago, the court found that public access to police internal affairs documents “promotes the core value of trust between citizens and police.”

However, Chief Gemme said he fears that turning over public records against the wishes of complainants might discourage other citizens from coming forward about police misconduct in the future. The chief called the notion of public interest “abstract.”

“What I’m talking about is a real person that has come forward and that has filed a complaint against a police officer,” he said.

Although dates are among the information deleted from the four almost completely redacted files, it is possible in some cases to determine a rough time frame for each case through the names of the police chiefs to whom various investigative reports and other internal memoranda are addressed.

The files contained in “Case 1” of the documents turned over to the T&G total 199 pages. There is no narrative information in the files, nearly all of which are totally blacked out with the exception of the word “investigation” at the top of each page and a page number at the bottom.

The first case involving Officer Rojas, who was sworn in as a police officer along with 47 other men and women on July 12, 1996, goes back at least to August 2003.

Police Department letterhead and other references note that the chiefs at the times the various Case 1 reports were filed were James M. Gallagher, who served in the post from September 2000 to August 2003; Gerald J. Vizzo, from November 2003 to October 2004; and Gary J. Gemme, who has been in the job since October 2004.

The Case 1 files provide no clear information about the nature of the complaint against Officer Rojas, although a memo from him to his then-supervisors, Capt. Roger Steele and Lt. Thomas J. Gaffney, states on the subject line: “Disposition re: A&B complaint” — referring to an assault and battery complaint. There also are completely redacted transcripts of a total of eight 911 calls to the Police Department and tape-recorded interviews conducted in connection with this investigation.

There also is a page of a Worcester District Court document marked “Order of Probation Conditions Upon Finding of Guilty or Sufficient Facts.” It contains a box marked “Risk/Need of OUI Supervision,” which is checked off. On a subsequent page, there is a reference to an “affidavit in support of a ex-parte motion” to be conducted in private before a judge.

Curiously, one of the pages in Case 1 is on Worcester Police Department letterhead with Chief Gemme’s name at the top, but below the letterhead, several stray words and letters that weren’t redacted in the body of the letter are upside down.

Case 2 contains 154 pages, all but 22 of which are totally blacked out. The remaining pages contain only words and word fragments, but do denote that Chief Gallagher was at the helm at the time.

Case 8 totals 46 pages and appears to have occurred totally within Chief Gemme’s administration.

Case 9, which contains 377 pages, is the biggest of the four heavily redacted cases involving Officer Rojas, and contains references to Chiefs Gallagher, Vizzo and Gemme, which take it back to at least 2003. Documents contained in the case files include a letter to the Officer Rojas from Chief Vizzo with the notation “second notice” on the top.

There also are undated and completely redacted copies of a police officer’s daily journal; a “WPD Digital TV Booking Log,” which lists the digital locations of videotapes of prisoners as they are being processed and taken to holding cells at the Police Department; and correspondence to a police chief from the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the union representing Worcester patrolmen.

There also are pages referring to Sections 23, 25, 27 and 28 of Chapter 147 of Massachusetts General Laws, with the wording of those sections totally redacted.

A review of the sections, which are available on the Web site of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, shows they pertain to rules governing private detective businesses in the state.

None of four heavily redacted cases cites any finding or outcome against or in favor of Officer Rojas.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20081210/NEWS/812100651


Rojas conviction set aside

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER— The Police Department’s internal affairs division and its successor, the Bureau of Professional Standards, has cleared Officer Mark A. Rojas of at least 15 complaints of misconduct over a dozen years. (5 comments)