[Responding to our investigation of a Boston suburb that prohibits
hiring outside candidates for police chief, two senators and a
prosecutor said such rules may make it harder for women and people of
color to attain leadership positions.]
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INSIDER-ONLY HIRING OF POLICE CHIEFS MAY VIOLATE CIVIL RIGHTS LAW,
OFFICIALS SAY  
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Christine Willmsen, WBUR
August 26, 2022
Propublica
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_ Responding to our investigation of a Boston suburb that prohibits
hiring outside candidates for police chief, two senators and a
prosecutor said such rules may make it harder for women and people of
color to attain leadership positions. _

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey urged cities and states to end
“policies that have only made it more difficult for women and people
of color to take on leadership roles.”, Robin Lubbock/WBUR

 

_ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign
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_This story was produced in partnership with WBUR
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WBUR’s investigations
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stories of abuse, fraud and wrongdoing across Boston, Massachusetts
and New England. Get their latest reports in your inbox.
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Both U.S. senators from Massachusetts criticized local bans on hiring
outsiders as police chiefs, while the top federal law enforcement
official in the state said that the restrictions may violate civil
rights law.

U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said that requiring police chiefs to be
hired from within their departments is “problematic” and
“ridiculous.” Such rules may limit the diversity of the candidate
pool, she said.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., urged state and local officials to “address
these pressing civil rights concerns” and lift “harmful policies
that have only made it more difficult for women and people of color to
take on leadership roles.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said that “excluding outside
candidates from consideration for key public positions is not a good
idea.” An ordinance in the Boston suburb of Revere “should be
reexamined to ensure all qualified candidates, internal and external,
get a fair shot in an inclusive hiring process,” she said.

Rollins, Markey and Warren were reacting to a recent WBUR and
ProPublica investigation
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of the police chief in Revere and the circumstances that led to his
selection. Revere and another suburb, Waltham, have had ordinances for
more than two decades that ban hiring an outside candidate as chief.

Revere’s ordinance prevented Mayor Brian Arrigo from looking outside
for candidates to clean up what he called the police department’s
“toxic culture.” In 2020 he promoted David Callahan, who as a
lieutenant had been accused of bullying and sexually harassing a
patrolman and creating “an atmosphere of fear” in the department.
Neither Callahan nor the other three candidates for the chief’s job
— all white men — had scored in the top two ranges,
“excellent” and “very good,” on a test measuring attributes
such as decisiveness and leadership. The Revere chief oversees more
than 100 officers and civilian employees.

Also in response to the WBUR/ProPublica investigation, Revere City
Councilor Dan Rizzo this week proposed a public examination of the
allegations against Callahan and what the mayor knew about them. The
council voted to speak with the mayor in private.

Rollins said an ordinance like Revere’s may violate the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, which gives the U.S. Department of Justice the authority
to initiate investigations into “practices that have the effect of
discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.” For
example, the no-outsiders law could constitute discrimination if there
were no officers of color inside the department who had sufficient
rank or experience to be eligible for chief, or if the ordinance
prevented a qualified external candidate of color from applying.

While declining to speak specifically about Revere, Rollins said,
“If there were an ordinance that somebody told me directly precluded
a city or a town from hiring qualified members of law enforcement that
have language capacity, that are representative of certain
communities, I’d want to work as hard as I could to remove that
hurdle.”

Rollins recently led an investigation into patterns of police
misconduct in another Massachusetts city, Springfield, where officers
in the narcotics bureau failed to report instances of excessive force.
Under a consent decree announced in April
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the Springfield police agreed to improve internal investigations, as
well as policies to prevent excessive use of force.

With police departments facing demands for reform nationwide, some
experts say that one way to address problems such as racial
discrimination, poor training or use of excessive force is to bring in
an outsider. But Revere’s mayor, Arrigo, didn’t have that option.
In 2017, he tried to change the ordinance so he could look at external
candidates, but he was rebuffed by the city council.

“We absolutely welcome the help of [U.S. Attorney] Rachael Rollins
to make these changes going forward,” Arrigo said in a statement to
WBUR. “I have been and always will be in support of this change and
am willing to work with anyone able to provide help and guidance. The
work of improving a toxic police department culture cannot be done
alone.”

It’s not known exactly how many cities and towns around the country
are constrained to choose police chiefs who already work in the
department. In New Jersey, state law requires most municipalities to
choose a chief from the ranks. The city of Bakersfield, California,
will hold a ballot referendum this November on whether to remove its
insiders-only requirement. Bakersfield agreed to the referendum as
part of a settlement
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with the California state Department of Justice, which had been
investigating alleged civil rights abuses by city police officers. In
2020, after a sweeping overtime pay scam that implicated more than 45
troopers, the Massachusetts legislature dropped a requirement that the
head of the state police be hired from within
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Police unions and local elected officials often support these
insider-only ordinances to reward veterans of the force for their
service and to keep political allies close. Brandon Buskey, head of
the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project in
New York, said that these requirements should be abolished because
they limit cities from finding the most qualified candidates for
chief, but that unions are standing in the way.

“That’s a problem that really is national in scale because we see
police unions and the lobbying effort of police groups being used to
really thwart necessary reforms in so many jurisdictions,” he said.

Historically, in Revere, police unions have opposed eliminating the
insider-only rule. Callahan had served almost three decades on the
force when Arrigo chose him in July 2020. As a lieutenant, he had been
recognized by the FBI for “exceptional assistance” in a public
corruption investigation.

In 2017, a patrolman, Marc Birritteri, accused
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Callahan of repeated sexual harassment and “torment,” including
calling him a “rapist” in front of fellow employees. The city
found that Birritteri’s complaints were substantiated. Arrigo agreed
that the city would pay the patrolman $65,000
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and went along with Birritteri’s request for a special type of
retirement for officers injured on duty, which could ultimately cost
the city at least $750,000. Birritteri, who has been on paid leave for
more than a year, promised not to disparage the city, the mayor or the
police department.

Callahan has disputed Birritteri’s allegations. During an interview
with WBUR and ProPublica on Aug. 4, he admitted that while he was a
lieutenant he texted an image depicting the Virgin Mary superimposed
on a vagina to a patrolman. He called it “a mistake” and said it
would “never happen again.” He has also acknowledged that he
didn’t properly investigate allegations that another senior officer
had sex in multiple areas of the police station while on duty.
Callahan declined to comment for this article.Arrigo has never
disciplined Callahan, who has a five-year contract as chief at an
annual salary of $192,000.

The mayor told WBUR in May that he would give the chief an “A” for
his job performance. He said Callahan has stood up to the
department’s culture as if he were an outsider.

Rizzo, the city councilor, criticized those comments, saying Arrigo is
“complimenting a chief that’s got numerous allegations against
him, none of which have been investigated and all of which he’s
aware of. … It’s despicable.”

But Rizzo, who served as the city’s mayor until he lost his
reelection bid to Arrigo, doesn’t want to change the ordinance.
Opening the job to outsiders would be “basically saying, ‘Look, we
have such a horrible police department that we can’t find one person
that could be chief,’” he said. “I think that’s a slap in the
face, quite honestly, to the men and women of the department.”

Arrigo said Rizzo had four years as mayor “to tackle the toxic
culture at the Revere Police Department, but chose instead to ignore
it.”

During Monday’s city council meeting, Rizzo introduced a motion
calling for the mayor to publicly “appear before the City Council to
discuss his knowledge of prior and/or current allegations of
misconduct against the current Chief of Police and what actions and/or
financial settlements have been made on behalf of the city as a result
of these allegations.” Rizzo said he wanted an accounting and
explanation of financial settlements with officers made since 2017.

However, other councilors were reluctant to publicly discuss the
police department’s problems. The council unanimously voted to
compel Arrigo to provide documents and meet with them, but only in a
private, executive session. Rizzo said he supported the compromise
because it was the only way to hold the mayor accountable.

Buskey, of the ACLU, said he’s concerned by the council’s decision
to keep the information behind closed doors. At a minimum, he said,
Revere should appoint an independent counsel and investigator to look
into the police misconduct. He added that Suffolk County District
Attorney Kevin Hayden or state Attorney General Maura Healey should
investigate Revere’s hiring and disciplinary practices. Both
declined to comment.Revere is a “very, very troubling situation,”
Buskey said. It’s a “poster child for the need for independent
oversight and control of the police function.”

* Police
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* civil rights law
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* Boston
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