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Police Review Board Not Releasing Required Reports

WAMC

The civilian board that investigates complaints against the police in Springfield, Massachusetts has not issued a public report about its work in almost two years.

The last report detailing the number and types of complaints investigated by the Community Police Hearing Board was released in March 2014. 

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said the board has been meeting but a paperwork bottleneck in the city’s law department has prevented the release of public reports on the board’s work.

" I was a little dismayed at that. We have to do better and we will do better moving forward, " Sarno said.

The volunteer board was created by a mayoral executive order in 2010 during a public uproar over the savage beating of a black motorist by a white police officer, who was later convicted of assault and tossed off the force.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.