EAST FALMOUTH — The former Franklin County sheriff is defending his actions as the East Falmouth Police Academy’s part-time director after details emerged regarding his August termination.
Christopher J. Donelan allegedly violated the training policies and instructor code of conduct of the Municipal Police Training Committee, which had suspended him earlier in the year without pay, pending an investigation into “inappropriate conduct” between staff and student officers. But Donelan said he feels the committee’s 47-page report, which was shared publicly earlier this month, contains information that was inaccurate or taken out of context.
“To the untrained observer, modified stress training can seem harsh, but it is the use of a boot camp model to imitate stress police officers are going to encounter on the street, to see early on if they can adapt and handle the stress,” he wrote in an email. “If someone is going to snap under pressure, or be afraid to do the job, better to figure that out in training rather than after you hand them a gun and a badge.
“A disciplined, stressful and difficult training environment is not to hurt recruits but to help them,” Donelan continued. “To develop them into confident and capable officers able to do their jobs safely.”
Academy Coordinator Edward A. Dunne was also suspended and then fired.
Donelan, who retired as sheriff of the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction in Greenfield at the end of January following 14 years, had taken up part-time work at the academy for about four weeks at the time of the suspension.
Allegations of misconduct by East Falmouth Police Academy staff started to surface on Feb. 12, when an academic instructor expressed concern to a Municipal Police Training Committee employee about what he had observed while teaching there. According to the Municipal Police Training Committee’s report, the instructor had reported that on multiple occasions, he either saw or heard about student officers being made to do lengthy, intensive physical training during their breaks. Andrea Nardone, the committee’s chief of training, scheduled a Feb. 18 virtual meeting with all academy staff to review the staff instructor’s manual and physical training safety guidelines.
On Feb. 26, the deputy chief of the Fall River Police Department — which had 10 student officers in the recruit officer course — reported damage to student officer uniforms, physical contact between staff instructors and student officers, excessive physical training used for punishment, and training throughout the day that was disrupting academic classes and not being run by certified physical training instructors.
The next day, Feb. 27, the deputy chief of the Emerson College Police Department reported serious physical injuries to one of his student officers in the course and expressed concern that the injuries did not appear consistent with normal academy training.
“MPTC training programs must uphold the highest standards of professionalism, accountability and respect. The misconduct at the East Falmouth Academy was unacceptable and inconsistent with our mission and core values,” Municipal Police Training Committee Executive Director Rick Rathbun, a retired colonel, said in an emailed statement. “We acted decisively to suspend those responsible, revoke instructor certifications as warranted and implement reforms to strengthen oversight. Every student officer deserves a learning environment built on integrity, respect and fairness. The corrective actions taken reinforce our culture of accountability and ensure our academies reflect the expectations of modern policing.”
Donelan, a former Democratic state representative credited with transforming the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction from a typical facility focused on incarceration to one with a trauma-informed treatment model, said he and the instructors were trying to prepare student officers for the difficult career path they had chosen.
“Police stress is real. It is a very difficult job,” Donelan wrote in an email. “Just within the last year, I have seen the bodycam footage of a Greenfield Police officer having a gun pointed at him while trying to arrest someone.
“We need to know that the people who we are hiring as police officers can handle this type of stress, back each other up and protect their community,” he added. “The training academy is the best opportunity to get a first glimpse of this.”
According to the Municipal Police Training Committee’s report, one break was so short that two of the 11 female student officers in the class resorted to urinating in shower stalls.
“On at least one occasion, the doorway to the bathroom was blocked with gym mats and [duffel] bags, which the student officers had to clear before any of them could use the bathroom,” the report reads. “Throughout the day, the unisex bathroom was locked because the student officers ‘lost their privileges’ to use it, which contributed to long wait times and meant some student officers didn’t get an adequate opportunity to use the bathroom.”
Several student officers reported that, during one drill, a pair of underwear belonging to a female student was taken out of a shower bag within her duffel bag and thrown on the parade deck. The Municipal Police Training Committee’s report states that staff instructors made comments about the nature and style of the underwear to the entire class.
The Municipal Police Training Committee’s report also mentions that instructors forced student officers to complete burpees, army crawls, knee walks, lunges and body rolls up and down a hill that was covered in mud and ice. At the top of the hill, the report alleges, instructors pushed students’ faces into the ground to force them lower, a simulation that was said to replicate having bullets flying above.