The police department in Worcester, Massachusetts allowed officers to engage in sexual contact with women suspected of being involved in the commercial sex trade, according to a report the U.S. Justice Department released Monday following a two year investigation.
The 41-page report also found that the police department used excessive force, including the unjustified uses of tasers and police dogs and strikes to the head.
The findings raised concerns that the department engages in racially discriminatory policing, according to Justice Department officials. Worcester, the state’s second-largest city with a population of about 207,000, is located 50 miles west of Boston.
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“Excessive force and sexual misconduct at the hands of officers who took an oath to serve and protect deeply diminishes the public’s trust in its sworn officers,” acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy for the District of Massachusetts said in a written statement.
“The actions by certain officers who engaged in this conduct are not a reflection of the many hard working and ethical officers at the WPD who did not engage in such misconduct,” he said.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the department looks “forward to working with city officials to institute reforms that build on their own preliminary efforts but that will fully bring an end to these unlawful and unconstitutional practices.”
Brian T. Kelly, a lawyer representing the police department, said police and city officials have cooperated with the federal investigation. He called the report “unfair, inaccurate and biased.”
“Instead of identifying individual officers who could – and should – be prosecuted if these serious allegations were true, DOJ has prepared a report by civil lawyers with no prosecutorial experience which makes incredibly broad allegations but fails to identify a single corrupt officer,” Kelley said in a written statement.
“The report is riddled with factual inaccuracies and ignores information provided by the city which debunks many of the anonymous claims,” he added.
A representative of Worcester City Manager Eric Batista said he expects to release a statement in coming days.
The report found that Worcester police officers “rapidly escalated minor incidents by using more force than necessary” including during encounters with people who have behavioral health disabilities or are in crisis — a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The report also includes what investigations describe as “concerns about some credible reports that officers have 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 investigate sexual assaults by officers and others.”
Engaging in sexual contact while undercover as part of official investigations violates the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, according to the report.
The report makes a series of recommendations from improving training on the use of force, requiring officers to report misconduct, mandate the use of body-worn cameras and require supervisors to review footage to monitor officer performance.
The report also calls on the police department to provide training about permissible investigative techniques to enforce laws about buying and selling sex, including a complete prohibition on engaging in sexual contact for law enforcement purposes.
The Justice Department opened the investigation on Nov. 15, 2022.
