State regulators suspended the policing licenses of four cops from Boston, Brockton, and Springfield, including one accused of letting a police dog “viciously” attack a man hiding in a closet.
The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission is required by law to suspend the police certifications of law enforcement personnel charged, indicted, or arrested in connection to a felony and revoke the license of officers who are convicted of felonies.
The four new suspensions announced earlier this week bring the total officers temporarily barred from serving to 28 as of May 4, an increase from the 24 cops who were on the suspended list as of March 20.
The additions come at the same time the POST Commission revealed that it had decertified a Woburn cop accused of helping plan a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. It is the first time regulators have taken the extraordinary measure.
Officers newly added to the suspension list include Jonathan Correia of the Brockton Police Department, Mila DePina-Cooley of the Boston Police Department, Jeffrey Alicea of the Springfield Police Department, and Monicka Stinson of the Boston Police Department.
Correia’s case stretches back to June 2022, when Brockton resident Jeff Camacho filed a civil rights lawsuit against Correia, Brockton Police Chief Brenda Perez, Brockton Officer Shannon Morency, and the City of Brockton.
In court filings, Camacho says he was inside his Brockton apartment with his girlfriend and two children in April 2021 when police were called to the residence. Morency and Correia showed up to the apartment, with Correia bringing his police canine, Enzo, court documents said.
Morency and other officers spoke to Camacho’s girlfriend outside the apartment and learned that Camacho was on the third floor. The girlfriend told police Camacho was unarmed, there were no weapons in the apartment, and no one was hurt, according to court documents.
Police officers entered the apartment, including Correia with his police dog Enzo. Camacho, who in court documents maintained he “had engaged in no criminal conduct, was completely surprised by the police presence.”
Camacho hid in a storage closet inside the apartment while 10 Brockton police officers converged on the closet door, court documents said. The officers, including Morency and Correia, opened the closet door and “physically removed the plaintiff Camacho from the closet.”
“As officers were placing handcuffs on the plaintiff Camacho, Officer Correia released Enzo to attack him,” court documents said. “Officer Correia’s police canine Enzo viciously bit onto the plaintiff Camacho’s right arm.”
Camacho said the dog continued to bite him “well after” he was cuffed, which caused him “to experience excruciating pain,” according to court documents.
“Officers, including Officers Morency and Correia, considered Camacho’s manifestations of pain as ‘resistance,’” court documents said, adding the dog bite wounds later became infected during a hospital stay.
Attorneys for Camacho and Correia did not respond to requests for comment.
A Brockton Police Department spokesperson acknowledged a Herald inquiry on Tuesday but did not provide a comment.
In documents responding to the lawsuit, Correia denied that Camacho’s girlfriend told police he was unarmed along with most of Camacho’s narrative.
“The defendant [Correia] admits that the police canine bit the plaintiff [Camacho] but denies the characterization of the bite as ‘viciously’,” Correia’s attorneys wrote.
Records show the case is playing out in federal court.
Springfield Officer Alicea is accused of assaulting a family member on April 15 while the pair were driving in a vehicle and he was in his police uniform, according to a police report.
The police report said the family member accused Alicea of placing them in handcuffs and later throwing them to the ground.
Attorney Daniel Kelly, who is representing Alicea, did not respond to a request for comment. Court records accessed Tuesday show that Kelly filed a notice of appearance last week.
And in Boston, a jury convicted Officer DePina-Cooley last week on three counts of receiving stolen property, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday in Suffolk County Superior Court.
Stinson, a Boston police officer, was suspended without pay in 2017 after she was accused of lying about her contact with a man wanted for murder, the Herald previously reported.
Stinson was a 10-year veteran of the department at the time and was charged with witness interference and obstruction of justice, according to a police statement from 2017.
A Boston Police Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking clarification on Stinson and DePina-Cooley’s employment statuses.