The Canton Police audit showed that protocol failures hampered an effective early investigation into the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, but there’s even more drama behind the scenes.
Two members of the Canton Police Audit Committee are accusing the committee chairman of “character assassination,” saying he left out negative comments directed at them in meeting minutes.
Committee members David Clough and Kathleen Howley are arguing that Chairman Bob McCarthy verbally attacked them in meetings and that his remarks should be reflected in the minutes of those meetings.
The committee met for the first time in months on Thursday, wrapping up its work after the independent audit dropped earlier this week.
The 206-page audit report by 5 Stones intelligence, Inc. deals with the Canton Police Department as a whole with a scope that included “crime scene protocols, professional standards, accountability processes, organizational structure, and other operational aspects” as well as a review of the finances.
The audit dropped on the same day the Karen Read retrial started, and included recommendations on how the crime scene surrounding O’Keefe’s body could have been worked better.
The front yard of 34 Fairview Road in Canton was a hotbed of police and EMS activity in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022, when Read is accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years and a 16-year Boston Police veteran, leaving him to die in a snowstorm.
The handling of the crime scene by the local police in those crucial early hours has been widely criticized, with the Read defense seizing on investigative and protocol failures during the first trial as they argue their client is being framed.
5 Stones Director Matthew Germanowski said at Thursday’s meeting that areas of improvement include crime scene protocols, internal affairs and training. He added that the audit did not find any indication of conspiracies, coverups or corruption.
“While we found deviations from policy,” he said, “none of them were intentional, conspiratorial or with the intent to manipulate evidence or distort findings for trial purposes.”
Before officials from 5 Stones, the firm that completed the $198,000 audit, discussed the report’s findings, committee members clashed over the proposed minutes from meetings that took place in the fall.
Clough said he had sent over edits that included “negative” comments McCarthy made, asking for “unanimous consent” to allow his minutes to be placed on the record. His request was denied.
“I saw the back-and-forths,” Howley said, “and it had Dave (Clough) saying things that the video showed he didn’t say. It was character assassination, which minutes aren’t for.”
Clough accused McCarthy of entering information included in emails into the minutes. “That’s just completely unfair,” Clough said. McCarthy shot back: “In your opinion. I think they are fine.”
Town Finance Director Randy Scollins appointed McCarthy as the committee’s chairman before it met for the first time last spring. Petitioners behind a successful Town Meeting vote in November 2023 that authorized the audit selected Clough and Howley to the committee, while McCarthy chose Daniel Muse and John Kelly to fill two citizen-at-large seats.
Per the hyperlocal Canton Citizen, McCarthy voted against the audit, urging the town to “stop pandering to the disruptive minority and move on.”
During meetings, McCarthy spoke out against residents and committee members who voiced opposition to his behavior, and told a couple of residents to leave.
Clough also mentioned that in an October meeting, McCarthy blasted him for lacking business experience, which he said was “demeaning to my character.” The comment was left out of the minutes.
“It’s to my understanding that you have a great deal of influence of what has been included or excluded for the most part in the minutes,” Clough told McCarthy. “When you attacked me and said I don’t have a degree, and you yelled right into my face on NBC News, that’s memorialized on a video outside of Canton TV.”
Clough added: “If you don’t want to put it in the minutes, that’s just showing you’re not being a fair person.”
McCarthy responded: “We have videos of all of these meetings that run two to three hours.”
Kelly countered that the verbal clash went both ways, not just against Clough and Howley.
“There was a meeting … that this side of the table was accused of covering for murderers,” Kelly said. “I never insisted that be put in the minutes. I just took it as an off-handed comment.”
McCarthy and Clough also clashed over a report that the committee had to complete upon the publication of the report, outlining the “process and outcome of the Police Audit Committee.”
McCarthy showed a bullet-point list that he said Scollins, the town’s finance director, provided last November in response to an inquiry from Clough. The chairman said he “cleaned up the bottom of it.”
“The final report will speak for itself,” it states. “It is not for the Police Audit Committee to politicize what a neutral party found. The goal of this endeavor was an independent audit report and 5 Stones intelligence has delivered this to us.”
Clough said the list does not suffice and that the report needs to include the “specific process of how that committee was formed.”
McCarthy interjected: “It doesn’t matter.”
A public meeting is scheduled for Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. at Canton High School for a “presentation of the findings and recommendations” of the report. 5 Stones will be conducting the roughly 90-minute review which will be followed by questions from the public.
“To take full advantage of this limited opportunity for the public to ask questions of Five Stones, only individual citizens, not members of the media, may come to the microphones,” town officials state. “In addition, no questions intended for the Audit Committee or any Canton elected or appointed public official will be entertained.”