The mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts has named a longtime Springfield police captain as the city’s next chief of police – the lone finalist to reach the end of the city’s search process.
Following an hour-long public, final interview Thursday night, Mayor Joshua Garcia says he’s selecting Springfield Police Captain Brian Keenan to become the city’s next police chief, pending contract negotiations.
Keenan was picked following a search process that kicked off when former chief David Pratt announced he would depart at the end of July.
A search committee collected public input and conducted interviews, sending two finalists to the mayor. One dropped out ahead of a public interview on Oct. 30, leading to an extension of the search, but no viable candidates being moved forward.
The lone finalist was revealed to be Keenan Thursday, who currently leads Springfield’s Firearms Investigation Unit and has spent 27 years on the force – including 14 years of command experience.
“I'm an outside candidate, but I'm a local guy.” Keenan said during his interview in city hall. “I've worked in conjunction with the Holyoke police on training issues. We've worked with them on lobbying issues at the state house, we've worked with them in several narcotics and gun operations over the year. I've made arrests in these streets, I've been through the doors and hallways in these streets, I've been part of tactical operations on these streets.”
A native of North Weymouth, Keenan says he studied criminal justice at Westfield State and went on to become a corrections officer with the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department for three years.
He then took a job as a patrol officer in Springfield, before eventually being promoted to sergeant and later, captain.
Keenan was tapped to lead the FIU, formed in the aftermath of the Narcotics Bureau being disbanded.
The disbandment was the result of a lengthy federal investigation into the department launched in 2018, which found a “pattern or practice of excessive force” involving the bureau, according to a 2020 DoJ report.
The report also found serious issues with the department’s recordkeeping practices – all factors that led to a 2022 federal consent decree the police department is currently under.
That and more came up during the interview streamed by Holyoke Media, with Keenan looking to address what he called “the elephant in the room,” describing actions taken by the department in the years that followed.
“What we had to do was we identified a way to document any type of dynamic action,” he said. “Now, dynamic action, I would say, is … use of force, car chase, a foot pursuit - any type of use of force, because before, we weren't documenting non-compliant handcuffing, because you didn't have to. It wasn't in the Mass. statute - we adhere to the MPTC statutes, not the federal ones - the federal ones are … much more stringent. So, that's what came out of it. Also, as a result of that issue, we got body cameras in the Springfield Police Department, which have been a wonderful tool, which were resisted by the officers in the beginning, and now they don't want to go to work without them.”
Keenan also claimed that over the span of his unit’s almost four year history, there have been “zero substantiated use-of-force complaints” as it removed 515 guns from the streets.
Throughout the interview, he fielded multiple questions about an extensive audit of the Holyoke Police Department released in 2023.
The report by Municipal Resources Inc. summarized a lengthy review of operations at Holyoke PD – finding low morale among officers, staffing issues and high demands on patrol personnel among the biggest concerns.
The police captain says he’s read the audit multiple times and agreed with all of its recommendations, including one that the department should look into accreditation.
Garcia asked Keenan about what it would take to achieve accreditation from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission, a long-term goal of the department. He noted the first step would be Holyoke PD reaching the first tier of the commission’s program – certification.
“It really depends on what you want to spend and how much resources you want to put to it - it's something that can happen but, I mean, you're looking at a ton of money; what's realistic for the Holyoke Police Department, is certification, which is 120 instead of, I think 400 different standards you got to get to, but that's much more realistic, and that's something that's going to be required by POST that we're going to have to do anyways,” he explained.
Keenan spoke to how retooling and improving communication between personnel in the department would be a priority for mending apparent divisions within Holyoke PD.
He also listed a number of solutions Springfield police instituted for addressing quality of life issues Garcia raised, including speeding, prostitution and open air drug dealing.
The mayor pointed out there are regular hotspots in the city of about 38,000 residents – something Keenan says tools like third party policing techniques and code enforcement would be central to solving.
“We have to identify these landlords and we have to let them know ‘You're not going to live in Newton, in your $4 million house, and have derelict properties in Holyoke or you're going to be in housing court every single day,’” Keenan said. “… the officers have to maintain a presence in those neighborhoods. The officers have to get out of the cruisers and meet the people who live there.”
Holyoke itself has seen an uptick in crime over the past few years, particularly when it comes to violent crime and drug cases. According to state statistics, the city saw 326 aggravated assault cases logged last year, up 12 percent from 2022.
There were also 460 reported drug seizures and 150 drug violation arrests in 2023 as well, a nearly 13 percent and 16 percent increase respectively.
If hired, Keenan would inherit a department with a budget of about $14.4 million, a significant drop from Springfield’s $58.5 million.
The job would also pack a pay raise – 2023 salary figures from Holyoke list former chief Pratt making a gross salary of about $210,000. According to the OpenPayrolls database, Keenan’s Springfield base salary is $138,000.
Following the interview, Garcia said he was impressed by Keenan’s responses – stating he would move forward with the finalist after being “blown away.” With his selection, the mayor's office says it's now a matter of drawing up a contract and reaching an agreement with the finalist.
