The Springfield Police Department petitioned state regulators Tuesday to remove hundreds of entries associated with its officers from an online disciplinary records database only hours after it launched.
Department leaders first saw the database Tuesday morning after it was published, spokesman Ryan Walsh said. After reviewing it, Walsh said “we are having conversations” to remove more than 220 of their 417 complaints and “numerous officers” from the database maintained by the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission.
“Any outcome that resulted with a ‘retraining’ are not disciplinary and are not sustained complaints. We expect to have this issue remediated in the near-future,” Walsh said in a statement to the Herald.
Walsh said the department hopes to have the records removed “as soon as possible.” He said the issue may have stemmed from having to submit records multiple times to the POST Commission over the past two years as regulators sought to gather them for publication.
“We have already heard from officers today that some things [in the database] didn’t happen or are wrong from incidents decades ago,” Walsh said in a phone call with the Herald. “… We feel we should’ve had a chance to review it for accuracy.”
The Springfield Police Department, one of the largest in the state, had the second-most number of disciplinary records in a database that includes more than 3,400 entries from 2,100-plus officers and 273 law enforcement agencies.
POST Commission spokesperson Cindy Campbell said the database contains information as reported by agencies to the commission “in accordance with detailed instructions that POST issued for such reporting.”
“The records received were reported as sustained. Retraining is a recommended or administered disciplinary option for a sustained complaint,” Campbell said in an email to the Herald.
Campbell said records will “not be removed if they were submitted by the agency as sustained complaints that resulted in the disciplinary measure of retraining.”
The POST Commission launched the database Tuesday after roughly two years of work, heralding it is an opportunity for the public to view misconduct allegations and disciplinary outcomes for thousands of police officers across Massachusetts.
Multiple departments found in the database list incidents where the outcome was retraining.
Of the incidents that resulted in retraining for Springfield police, the alleged misconduct varies from improper firearm usage or storage to “failure to report or intervene upon witnessing use of force” and “improper processing of prisoners and property” to “use of excessive, non-deadly force,” according to multiple entries in the database.
The Massachusetts State Police had the most records in the database at 493, according to the POST Commission. A spokesman for the state police said the agency is “not challenging entries.”
Spokesman Dave Procopio said the state police are “committed to the highest standards of conduct and a rigorous set of policies, rules, and regulations for our members.” He pointed to a “robust” Office of Professional Integrity and Accountability that investigates allegations of misconduct.
“As the largest police agency not only in the state, but in all of New England, we take great pride in the stellar performance of the overwhelming majority of our members, and in the rigorous manner in which we investigate ourselves when necessary,” he said in a statement to the Herald.
The Boston Police Department had the third-most number of disciplinary records in the database at 373 entries.
The Herald contacted the department for comment.