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Jack Spillane: I’m here with Chief Paul Oliveira. This is Jack Spillane from The New Bedford Light. And Holly Huntoon, the public information officer, I’m sorry, media specialist, for the police department. I have to get my titles right. And Chief Oliveira has agreed, graciously, to take some questions from me about this recent publicity about this city and the allegations that were made about him and the New Bedford Police Department.
This first question is just about the sequence of things. Holly had said that The Boston Globe had emailed four or five requests. And the Globe reported that she only gave one vague answer and then, when you finally got that long list of emailed questions from them, you prepared answers.
But the story came out by the day that you were going to deliver it to them. So my question is, why not respond to the original emails, requests for information in more depth? Call them up or whatever?
Paul Oliveira: So early on, from what I recall, most of their requests were all FOIA requests. There was a lot of historical data that they would get from the city solicitor’s office. We don’t deal with the FOIA requests. They go through the city solicitor’s office. So some of those, obviously, I wasn’t even privy to, they were coming through, straight through them.
When I was first made aware of the accusations being made against me was when they dropped that letter off at my house, while I was on vacation, in early March. And then, I realized the extent of where they were going with this so-called “Snitch City.” Prior to that, “Snitch City” — what it meant to me was, I thought they were working on a story to deal with the informant cases in New Bedford and elsewhere. I was never led to believe it was strictly about New Bedford. I was aware they had looked into the Jorge Santos case, but that case I found kind of funny because really, the case had nothing to do with snitches.
That was a corrupt cop, who we found and identified and subsequently moved for termination and moved even to ask to be indicted and didn’t get indicted. Then he ended up resigning.
JS: One of the corrupt things he did, though, was to claim he had confidential informants when he didn’t, that were not being documented.
PO: Well, yes, when he entered the boat, apparently, when he wrote that report that night, he said at that time he had an informant. That’s why he was entering the boat. But I can tell you prior to that, he had no registered informants. He wasn’t a drug cop. He wasn’t even a detective. He was a street cop.
JS: That was the first time you had heard him claiming that he had confidential informants for the thing because he was stopping people outside the hotel and different things.
PO: Correct. So we recently had learned of that in April [2018]. When he boards the boat in June. And that’s when he starts claiming this confidant hiding behind this guise of a confidential informant. But we quickly found that all to be false. And that was all called out in the Internal Affairs investigation. So he used it as a guise on that particular night, but prior to that, Jorge Santos had no registered informants. Like I said, he hadn’t worked with the drug unit, hadn’t worked with detectives. He was a patrol officer in the marine unit.
JS: Chief, you had said there were only a handful of Internal Affairs investigations about you, but, Anastasia [Lennon, reporter for the Light] had received 10 from the Globe’s public records requests, and I guess there were 10. None of them were sustained. But that 10 is not a few, right?
PO: Well, no, but let me clarify that. So when you work on the drug unit, if someone makes a generalized complaint against the drug unit, you can be listed. So even though I wasn’t the target of many of those, my name is listed as a subject matter. That’s the way the database was kept. It’s no longer kept like that.
If I make a complaint against the drug unit, we wouldn’t list all, at the time, 13 members of the drug unit — we would list, we would talk to the person, find out exactly, show them photos, what officers were involved, and we’d list them. So if you go back and you see some of those cases, was I listed in that?
But just because it’s listed in the IA notes, if you go dig deeper, which apparently she didn’t do, you would see the individual officers and some of those exactly who was involved.
[Editor’s note: Five of the 10 IA complaints involved Oliveira alone. Two involved Oliveira and one other officer. Three involved a team of officers including Oliveira. None of the complaints were sustained.]
JS: You had resigned, had informed Mayor Mitchell that you were resigning on Jan. 3 of this year?
PO: Not resigning.
JS: Retiring?
PO: Retiring.
JS: Yes. My bad. Retiring as of Jan. 3. You gotta watch those reporters.
PO: Not retiring after Jan. 3. No, no, no, I told them I was retiring Jan. 3 on May 3.
JS: That’s right. The Globe had written that you announced your resignation just as this series was coming out, about the way the department was running with confidential informants under your leadership and all, but in fact, the Globe articles did not come out until, they started at the end of February?
PO: I believe they started advertising some time in February. Yeah. Let me just be clear, Jack, as I’ve said numerous times, the Globe had nothing to do with my retirement. I did announce on Jan. 3 to the mayor. It was a private conversation in his office, during one of my meetings with him, and I was giving him notice that I would be retiring, the week of my birthday.
It’s no secret now — everybody knows my birthday. Well, my birthday is this week, and I was going to stay until Saturday, which obviously I still will do — that’s my retirement date, May 3.
JS: But the mayor, giving him the five months, but he asked you not to announce it till the date that you and he arrived at — that was Feb. 18.
PO: That’s correct. We had some discussion, when I told him Jan. 3 about when, I told him even that I really wasn’t prepared to tell the department, because obviously I wanted to write up an email to announce I wanted my men and women to hear from me. So, he assured me that it would be kept in confidence until then, so my men and women would, in fact, hear from me.
At that point, we did discuss when would be a reasonable time to put it out, for the body to know, and we came up with sometime in mid-February.
JS: I had the impression that you wanted to announce it earlier.
PO: I wanted to announce to him first. That was my biggest concern when I had talked with my family and a couple different mentors that I had in my life. Obviously, I wanted the mayor to know first before anybody else. He’s been very good to me, and I wanted to make sure he was given due notice. I didn’t want to put one notice out for everybody on the same day.
I thought the mayor deserved to know it first. And that’s what I did. And then, as far as when it came out after that. I don’t recall it being, like, I didn’t have a date in mind. I obviously didn’t want to be a lame duck chief either. Like, I knew there’s a proper time of doing it.
And I just wanted to meet the mayor’s needs. Where if he felt the best time. I thought mid-February was a reasonable amount of time to put it out to the men and women. And then it gave him time to start preparing for my successor.
JS: So the Globe advertising their series is just a coincidence.
PO: Absolutely. Because I had no idea about that. I had no idea. And like I said, had I even known — it just said Snitch City, at the time when that came out, well after I had announced. But Snitch City didn’t mean much to me, even on the advertisement.
JS: You didn’t know that you were going to be a big part of that series.
PO: I did not. No.
JS: But, what’s it been like for you? This must have been really, really difficult.
[Pause by Chief Oliveira]
JS: I apologize, I don’t — I meant, it’s just a question that I want to ask because, I can’t imagine going through something like this, that’s not difficult.
PO: The answer is yes. It’s been difficult.
So I’ve worked here 32 years, and, I mean, I think myself, people I worked with over the years, some of the chiefs, met some amazing people, worked with some amazing people. I think a lot of amazing work has been done over the course of my career. Not just by myself, but myself and many of my coworkers.
And, my time as chief, I’ve taken great pride, trying to professionalize the department. More transparent, accountability. And make the city safer, with the help of all the men and women on the department. And I think a lot of that’s been done. I was thinking, I worked for six chiefs and four mayors. And during the course of that career, I’ve progressed through the power. I’ve been very fortunate.
And that wouldn’t happen if all this was true. I wouldn’t be where I am today, not through six chiefs and four mayors. This isn’t about one person who’s taken care of Paul Oliveira.
JS: I apologize if I’ve upset you. I want to ask that question because one of the reasons I’ve wanted to do this column is because as a journalist for a long time, I understand sometimes people comment, sometimes people don’t comment. But I felt that, because we hadn’t heard from you, it hurt both yourself in terms of your reputation, but also the city’s reputation.
And, not that I have any illusions that either the department or the city are perfect places where bad stuff doesn’t go on. Certainly it does, like anyplace else, but, I just saw that the silence was something that there needed to be … I was just wondering about it.
PO: No, I appreciate that. I appreciate you reaching out. And that’s really the way I looked at this. This was an opportunity. To not have my career, my 32-year career, summed up in a three-part story of total negativity — of totally, as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a bunch of unsubstantiated allegations.
So I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you and not just to speak to you, but, as you know, to provide you with the documentation as much as I have and a lot of this stuff’s 30 years old and I’m fortunate I have some documentation here dated 25 years ago. But anyway, that’s what bothers me. A 32-year career, somebody tries to sum it up in a three-page article and not just take hits against me, but so many of my coworkers, the city itself, which I think has been so amazing to me and so proud to work here. It hurts.
JS: Just for the record, I don’t have any particular closeness to Chief Oliveira. I think you did one Chat right after you became chief. And I’ve been a political reporter most of my career, and a columnist. I think we’ve done one or two stories.
PO: Maybe that’s about it.
JS: Maybe. I want to go through some of the complaints in the stories that have been written. One was a complaint about there was an Internal Affairs investigation about a mother claiming that you had provided or supplied drugs to her daughter in return for information as a confidential informant. Is it?
PO: Yes. There was an Internal Affairs case, lodged many years ago, regarding that. In the case, I was cleared, no misconduct. And that was, I recall, generally about that without knowing all the details, there was an informant that was being used, and she was a drug user, and she had apparently — I don’t know — she told her mother she stopped using but it kind of got exposed that she was using again, and was like, how were you getting drugs? And she therefore said that she was getting them from us. We don’t — we’ve never handed out drugs, obviously. Never, never happens. But what we do in exchange for informants who do work for us, we give them cash. So if she was purchasing the drugs with the cash, I can see where she ends up telling the mother, well, I’m getting the drugs from the police. So again …
JS: There are regulations governing how you provide money to informants. That has to be documented.
PO: That’s correct. That’s all documented. And she was a registered informant back in the day and all that. So, like I said, I was cleared of that. I recall the mother being fully understanding of the situation once it was explained to her and then coming in, the daughter ended up, also fessing up that she had kind of used those as a scapegoat, but it wasn’t, in fact, true.
JS: The complaint was not sustained.
PO: That’s correct. Or it was exonerated … one of the two.
JS: A complaint about a woman? I guess this complaint was made about a year after the initial drug raid about being forced by a number of officers to parade around while she was dressed only in a thong.
PO: Yeah. So that one there I have no recollection of. That sounds like that was a generalized complaint against the whole drug unit at the time.
JS: Your name was in the complaint?
PO: Right. Yeah. No. You’re telling me I was, must have been one of the drug unit officers at the time that was at the apartment. I have zero recollection of that case, and I can just tell you that I have zero recollection of ever that happening. That’s not something that would ever happen in that unit, now or back then.
We had very strict protocol when we went into a search warrant on whether there were kids present or people were found not to be properly dressed or, so whatever the case may be.
JS: So if you come into a raid and a person is in a stage of undress, do you allow them to dress?
PO: Of course. Yes. No doubt about it. Yeah. We allow them to dress then. And then even if we before we arrest and take someone to jail — if they don’t have appropriate clothing on or clothing that’s not going to be suitable — if they’re going to spend the whole night in a prison cell, we would allow them to change up.
So, yeah. That’s not again, a case that was not sustained, that officers were cleared of. That’s why, like I said earlier — thank God for the body cameras now, because I think some of the frivolous complaints that have come up over the years, I think body cameras will help resolve those.
JS: Among the complaints, the 10 complaints that were mentioned in a number of them talked about verbal abuse that was said to have taken place during the raids. We’ve all seen, since the advent of cell phones, these police raids where officers behave badly. You’re in a dangerous situation when you make a raid; people can be armed.
I imagine it was a law enforcement philosophy about controlling a stop. Does verbal abuse take place in these situations?
PO: No, I wouldn’t say verbal abuse. There’s definitely at times, there may be, a raised voice when you go in and take control of — especially if you have people trying to jump out windows or right through the back doors, it can be quite chaotic. You never know what you’re going into when you go through the door. And if you, you may be outnumbered. But to say verbal abuse? No, I wouldn’t. I don’t know of any times that we would use any type of verbal abuse. It just obviously, again, it’s not in the integrity of the unit. So much about work in the drug unit is your integrity and your professionalism. These are cases that you’re going to have to go to court and testify on in front of a lot of the same judges that you see on a regular basis, in front of a lot of the same defense attorneys, in front of a lot of the same prosecutors from the DA’s office. So if you were one to lose your composure, or lose your credibility, you really wouldn’t have any value in the drug unit.
JS: But we’ve all seen these cell phone camera cases where officers obviously are abusing, verbally abusing. Are you saying it doesn’t happen in New Bedford?
PO: No, I’m not saying no. I’m not saying it’s never happened. No, but I’m saying if you are saying if the accusation here is that all these cases — I’d have to pull up these cases that you’re referring to — but to say that that was a normal occurrence that narcotics officers were verbally abusing people? I’m telling you, no, that’s not true. Has it happened on occasion? I’m not telling you it’s never happened. But again, like I say, with body-worn cameras, now, that’s one thing we can really ensure doesn’t happen. But, they have a handful of complaints out there against the whole unit — to say that people were verbally abused without knowing the specifics of the case, I can’t speak to each individual one, but I can tell you that was definitely not the practice, the standard operating practice of that unit.
JS: One of the stories in the Globe series was citing Lieutenant Bob Richard about a raid that took place on, I think it was Jones Street in the North End. … There was a small amount of cocaine seized in the original bust. And then later, five more kilos were found. Lieutenant Richard alleged that you told him that you got a tip of the other — from a CI of the other kilos documented for them, and gave one kilo back to the informant, which was said in the story to be worth $40,000.
PO: Yeah, it’s outrageous. It just makes zero sense to me, obviously, that that didn’t happen. I can’t even imagine, under those circumstances, how it would happen. I don’t know of any police officer [who would] get their hands on a kilo of cocaine and hand it over to another drug dealer, to risk your job and everything you have. I don’t get it. It makes no sense to me, Jack. I have no, I can’t even come up with an explanation of how or why, but I can tell you, it’s absolutely untrue.
JS: Do you remember that raid at all?
PO: I remember the raid. I remember the raid. It was about 20 years in the same time frame, 25, 30 years ago. Yeah. We did seize an amount of drugs in the house, and we did get information that there was another stash of drugs outside the house. Went back and ended up retrieving that also. But to say there was more drugs that we allowed to leave or we took more and then passed it out to other people. Definitely not. I can’t even imagine how those circumstances would work.
JS: A lot of narrative in the Globe series [is] about deals being made with confidential informants like, you can do anything short of murder or rape, and you’re going to be immune because you’re giving us information. Is that how the system works?
PO: No, by no means. Confidential informants are used in that type of work as you know. They’re used in journalism, right? They’re used in reporting. They’re used in a lot of different ways of writing and a lot of different professions. But confidential informants have, there’s very strict legislation around how you use them, when you use them. And I know, when I was in the drug unit, we always used them in accordance with the way they were supposed to be used under the court system.
JS: But don’t you have to give them something in return for getting information? I mean, some sort of protection?
PO: Usually, usually give them. You can give them some cash. That’s allowed upon. Sometimes, there is consideration, back then, there was some consideration through the district attorney’s office if they agreed to it, and they thought it was worth it. If you help solve the crime or help, took a gun off the street, a significant amount of drugs, but that’s really up to the DA’s office. We don’t have, we didn’t have the all-inclusive right to make those types of deals. But I can tell you, I referred you back to 1997, when Bill Bratton was in town and did a study on the drug unit. And, he makes specific mention in his consulting study that he thought all the protocols were tight.
It was a big unit back in the day. We had 13 detectives, three supervisors. Nobody was really acting on their own. Just to do a drug case, you would need a search warrant — or anything operation, you would need six or seven, eight or nine detectives just to be involved. So we really didn’t even have the space to have any type of so-called shenanigans where you had all this leeway or space to kind of just create your own narrative.
There was surveillance that took place …. Many times the surveillance you needed help, whether you were able to sit on the back door, you needed a couple of detectives to sit on the front door. Or if you were watching a controlled buy, someone would have to meet with the informant and you’d have to see the informant go into the house, exit the house and go meet them. Sometimes that would take five or six. If it was a delivery service we’d have to follow the person from point A to point B and then see if they went back to the house or if they went to a stash house. So some of these, many of these cases took many, many detectives to develop.
So there was a lot of things put in place, to prevent …
JS: So 30 years ago, the war on drugs was probably at its height. We had the whole “three strikes and you’re out” thing and, I know that New Bedford had terrible problems with drugs, not that it doesn’t now. But, there was a lot of call for police officers just to make the neighborhoods safer in terms of drug activity?
PO: Yeah. That’s fair to say. But, 30 years ago, all the rules weren’t thrown out the window, either, right? Some of the rules have changed and some of the policies have gotten tighter since the ’90s. But the drug trade was different, too. We didn’t have cell phones, right?
We didn’t work with cell phones. We didn’t have that type of communication with informants. A lot of stuff we did, were street arrests back in the ’90s in New Bedford. There were days, we’d go out, and make 20 arrests in a day.
JS: So, so a lot of it operated by talking to people?
PO: It operated by talking and that’s how you succeeded in that. You and you talked and you built up relationships and trust, and if you weren’t able to build up that trust in a relationship, you know maybe you wouldn’t be as successful. But you didn’t have — nowadays the drug trade’s totally different with cell phones and delivery services.
Back in the day, you could say it was a little simpler. People, if you wanted, if you were my dealer, there was only one way to find out if I knew I could buy from you today: I’d have to go knock on your door. Or see you on your street corner wherever you dealt. And that helped us, because as [we were] doing the surveillance, we could see that, a little more visible. When people started getting into the drug delivery service years later, it became a little more difficult.
JS: But a lot of it does depend on that confidential informant system, the honesty of the police officer. Like a corrupt cop can abuse the CI system, just as an unethical reporter can abuse a confidential source system. It is a system that seems like it’s highly reliant on the officer’s integrity.
PO: Yes, I agree with that. It’s like everything else as a police officer, there’s abuses. And we’ve seen that abuse not just in New Bedford, we’ve seen throughout the country. But when you work in the drug unit, I always say your integrity means more than anything. That’s all you have in the drug unit is your integrity.
So if it was an officer that was ever willing to jeopardize that integrity or their credibility to bend the rules or to overuse a CI, once that gets exposed, that’s your career as a drug cop. You know as a drug cop…
JS: It’s hard to believe, though, that no officer ever abused it in New Bedford. Did you have any officers disciplined for abusing the confidential informant system?
PO: We’ve had over the years? We’ve had officers. We’ve had some officers disciplined. Yes, yes. Yeah. So not to say no, it’s never happened here. I’m not saying this never happened here. I’m just telling you my experience with it. No, I know I’ve never been disciplined or accused of it, until now, 30 years later, there’s some accusations here, but no. I’m comfortable what I did. Like I said, I’m comfortable with the credibility. I’ve testified in court many times as an expert witness. I’ve testified in federal court numerous times as I was acting as the liaison with the ATF for many years. So …
JS: There was something that the city has — this “For the Record” website on Facebook — from the Police Department for cases that people are more interested in. And in the city’s defense, some of the allegations made in the Globe series, it said that you had no — it was a word that jumped out at me — formal knowledge of an FBI investigation. Did you have informal knowledge of an FBI investigation — or three separate ones, I guess?
PO: No, nothing. Nothing. As that said, I’ve never been informed of an investigation. I’ve never been made aware of an investigation. I’ve never been subpoenaed to testify as part of an investigation.
JS: You didn’t hear gossip or buzz that you were being investigated or anything like that.
PO: No. I don’t recall any time of any type of investigation that I was looking into by the FBI.
JS: I have one more complaint I want to ask about. This is maybe the most startling one, that of you handing out wads of thousand dollar bills during a Coffin Avenue raid at the apartment of this guy, Frank “Rizzo” Simmons. And that it was something like $33,000 seized in that raid and that only $2,200 of it was reported, and $30,000 of it went into something called the “green fund” for cops, for detectives, to spread around.
PO: Yeah. Again. Outrageous. Outrageous. It makes zero sense to me. Didn’t happen. Never happened. Never heard of the green fund until I started reading this story. They come up with this term “green fund.” Again, does it make sense? I just ask, does that make sense to normal people? You can have 13 officers, however many people involved in that drug raid, and I’m going to be there, or other officers are just going to be out there, handing out money and just taking money and doing what? Like there’s going to be no, that this wouldn’t come to light? You’re telling me if this was the normal practice of the drug unit, it’s only coming to light 30 years later? And if this was a practice, 30 years, are they saying it’s still a practice? Of course not. It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous. And I have so much documentation to show that so much of that timeline is outrageous, of the arrest and, and all a lot of those things that happened during that incident, which just makes the whole story just not makes sense even more.
JS: Yeah. Just to be clear, the chief has supplied me with some documentation which outlines the events that Rizzo claimed and the sequence in which they took place. And the documentation that the chief has, as to when they actually took place and what happened, it doesn’t seem to be comporting with that. Would that be a fair summary?
PO: That’s correct. And the other documentation I think is helpful, too, is my timeline of events. When you read about all this stuff, I was in the drug unit for three years as a rookie cop. I was the most junior. I went into the unit in late 19 — what do you say, 1996? I worked in the unit for three years, and I was promoted and moved on as a sergeant back into uniform patrol. So I was there only for three years. During those three years, there were 13 detectives in the unit. Three supervisors. And the Bratton report had just come out in 1997 talking about all the complimentary work, and guidelines and restrictions that were taking place in the unit.
So I don’t know how a rookie — the way it’s portrayed is that this rookie cop Oliveira goes into the unit and apparently, I become, I don’t know, this rogue cop who then takes over the unit as the most junior detective. Again, it doesn’t make sense to me. None of the timeline matches up.
And then later on in my career, I’m asked to go back as a sergeant. I run the unit, and no allegations from when I’m a sergeant. And then I go back later and run it as a lieutenant. And again, no allegations during that time. So it just doesn’t make sense. And then all the times during my career, the other times that I’ve worked in internal affairs and testified at all these different hearings and arbitration hearings, testified in federal court again, testified again, like I said, as expert witnesses throughout the state. And yet, none of this stuff at the time was an issue. And like I say, I have worked for six chiefs and four mayors and been promoted throughout my 32 years. Again, none of this stuff added up during any of that time. And now, 32 years later, here we are and I’m being asked these questions.
JS: And just for anybody who doesn’t know, the Bratton report was a report written in the late 1990s?
PO: About 1997.
JS: …about New Bedford and the policies and procedures of the department. Bill Bratton is a former chief in New York and…
PO: L.A. and Boston…
JS: Boston and L.A., a national figure, highly respected for associated with community policing and things like that. So that’s the Bratton report that Chief Oliveira is referring to there.
PO: And if I could just mention, Jack, the Jensen Hughes report. Shortly after becoming chief, we had another national company come in and again, take a look at our policy and procedures here and specifically I asked them to look at the narcotics unit again, to be sure, in, in … were our suggestions made? All our suggestions were made. As a matter of fact, we tweaked the policy, made the policy even tighter last year under my watch as chief. And if more recommendations come, we’ll continue to do that.
But I’ve never been one to shy away from, from letting somebody come in with a new set of eyes or to look at something and say, can we do it better? And I think that’s been the practice. To the good faith of the city. They did it back then with Bratton and shortly after I became chief and the mayor and I talked about it, and it was welcome again. It’s not cheap. It was a lot of money. The city paid a lot of money to do it.
But I think that there’s something to be said for that. A lot of police departments only do this in times of trouble, because there’s some major controversy where these groups are forced to come in and basically find all these issues. I think New Bedford’s done this proactively, and I think it’s helped.
JS: Regarding the Jensen Hughes report, there’s been some reporting, however, in The New Bedford Light, that the majority of the recommendations have not been implemented.
PO: That’s correct. And I challenge that, because I don’t think that was accurate reporting. As a matter of fact, I think it was terrible reporting the way that story was written, because I submitted a 14-page document of all the recommendations. And that’s why one of my recommendations was to call Jensen Hughes, call the lead consultant who’s helping us bring a lot of those recommendations to the finish line. Wasserman. It was another who has worked with Bill Bratton and another national figure. He’s been all over the country doing these types of reports. And he can be a true testament of whether he thinks my progress has been, with that.
JS: But I can tell you that there’s been counting up of the exact recommendations and how many of them have been implemented and how many have not been.
PO: Yeah. Well, obviously, her reporting was much different than mine. So we’ve done a number of those — some of these things, and I think the Jensen Hughes report will acknowledge, to require bargaining and union negotiations. Some of them are just not doable as maybe down South where there’s not a union, maybe you can implement things faster. But a lot of the things that I was able to implement, I immediately did. And some things won’t be able to be implemented, until we have a new police station, just because of logistics and things such as that.
JS: What kind of things could not be implemented with or without a new police station?
PO: I think about getting accredited. You need a certified cellblock and you need a certified station, and we just don’t have that right now with the structure. They talk about different staffing things that we could probably do better. And when you’re down 50 and 40 — most of my time as chief, I’ve been down, on average, 40 police officers.
It’s not easy to run. And I’m not looking for any credit here. Because I guess most police chiefs, I get it. Most police chiefs throughout the country right now, if you are running a big police department, you’re understaffed.
JS: Is that in the wake of the pandemic and the publicity with cell phones?
PO: Sure. Yeah. George Floyd, right? We all know everything, our profession took a major hit on recruitment, especially the bigger police departments. What we saw was a lot of police officers left the bigger departments to go to the smaller departments. And we suffer that here for a whole host of reasons.
But at the end of the day, I’ve run the department most of the time, pretty much the whole time I’ve been chief. I want to say, if I ran back, I guarantee you I’ve run this department — I’ve had to run this department, on average, about 40 police officers short. That’s not easy. It’s not an easy task. And so, can you imagine? I wish, if I was to do this over again — I won’t — but if I was, you give me 40 more police officers, what we really could do in this city. I mean, and I’m proud of what the men and women — again, it goes back to the amazing work that’s been done. For me to put that crime report out again this year and show that crime’s significantly dropping and knowing we’re so understaffed. And that’s just not coincidence. That’s because these men and women are doing more with less, there’s no doubt about it. We all are. But they’re still out there, and they’re doing it, and they’re getting their job done. And obviously, the citizens of the city are in a safer place for it.
So great things are still happening, even though we’re still understaffed. Great things are happening even though we haven’t done every single one of those recommendations. But if you talk to Bob Wasserman, I think he can tell you, I have given 100% of my due diligence. And as I walk out this week, is there a couple more things in there that I wish I could have got through the finish line? Or are there a couple more things just in general? Of course there are. I’ll always have those things in the back of my mind wishing maybe there, but … we did the body cameras and more transparency, more community outreach. We’ve made great progress.
JS: Just for anybody who doesn’t know, Bob Wasserman is one of the authors of the Jensen Hughes report and also worked with Bill Bratton on the Bratton report.
This reporting in the Globe series — [that] they took a young man who was a confidential informant, who eventually ended up in jail. And, the story goes that he was initially approached to be a CI for one case and promised that it would just be one case.
And then the department kept going back to him and back to him. And he was squeezed in between the department and the drug dealers he was associating with and, once you become a confidential informant, you can’t get out. It is easy to see how the system could end up working that way. Was there no truth to that kind of saga of the guy thinks he’s getting into it for once and then can’t get out?
PO: I can’t speak to his case, 100%, in confidence. But I can tell you this, we talked to him. That was an Internal Affairs case. The story he reported to the Globe is much, much different than what he reported to us. I can tell you that, of our involvement with him and his involvement with us.
So the fact that he’s gone back and kind of put a totally different spin on it, I can’t speak to that. I can only speak to what I know what he told us. And it was much, much different.
JS: How so?
PO: How so is that he was a voluntary informant. He was an informant who no doubt chose to be an informant. And, he had his opportunity to walk out any time. It was never this case where you got to do more, more, more, more. Why do more, more, more just if —
JS: But it is inherently dangerous to be an informant, right? Because you want to get out, but the cops know what you’ve been doing, so you can get charged if you keep doing that stuff. And if the people that you’re in it with find out that you’re an informant, then your life is in danger.
PO: Yes. Oh, yeah. No, but that’s why it’s up to them whether they want to do that. Some people say, yes, I’ll do it, and then they change their mind. Some people maybe do one case and they do no more. But that’s totally voluntarily on that person. We have no stronghold on people to do it or to continue to do it.
JS: There was some reporting of officers who outed confidential informants.
PO: There was, and again we have a different story of that in our Internal Affairs records, for those cases that were investigated. And like I say in particular with this person who really outs himself, during his — so during one of the times of his arrest, he comes out and says it. He says he was outed by us. If you listen to his taped confession, which is public record, right, which was used in court, he chose to out himself during that time, but that’s again —
JS: I think on the “For the Record” site, there was one officer who was — a judge found that he had either outed, or gave the name of, made public the name of a CI and it was the confusion over — there was some sort of case where the judge found that the officer had perjured himself.
PO: Oh, it’s on the record piece?
JS: Yeah.
PO: Trying to think I don’t recall that. Yeah. It’s a case I’m not familiar with.
JS: It was. I mean, there were so many different cases.
PO: Yeah, you’d have to tell me. We tried outlining each specific case. We were asked to point and get the details. Most of those cases weren’t under my command, I don’t think. So what I did was we reviewed the IA files and tried to give the best answer based on which the IA files were all public record … we were just trying to give the details of some of those cases. I think in the case you’re talking about is the officer that no longer works here? He transferred? So in that particular case, I think there was confusion over how many controlled buys he had done, I believe, and the judge didn’t find his testimony to be credible.
JS: That’s right.
PO: Okay. It didn’t have to do with an informant. It had to do with a controlled buy. No?
JS: But the judge reprimanded him. But the defense was that he had either misstated the way that the controlled buy happened, or, that it really wasn’t a controlled buy, there was another controlled buy that took place close to it.
PO: Yes. It had something to do with that. Correct. Yes. But by the time it came to light, obviously the judge basically had a decision against him because there was too much confusion over that controlled buy. So I think the judge dismissed that case. But that officer ended up transferring shortly after. But that case, yes. There seemed to be some confusion over the controlled buy, correct.
JS: This Lieutenant Bob Richard, who is one of the main on-the-record critics of you, the source of the kilo story, the source of some of the outrageous behavior that took place, he’s had a troubled history in the department?
PO: Yes. Yeah, he was terminated from the department. I don’t think there’s any — there’s enough records out there.
JS: There’s a public record of his termination and the cases that had to do with automobile accidents involving police cars and smoking, I believe. But he had also been investigated and charged, I think the charges were dismissed, in a domestic violence case that became controversial for outing [him]. Did this officer, to your knowledge, have some bad blood with you? Some reason to want to take revenge?
PO: I can’t really speak to Bobby Richard’s mindset. All I can tell you is that, Bobby and I, we got along on the job together. And we were good friends for many years, and our paths went a different career, a different path. And, unfortunately, yes, I was involved in his Internal Affairs investigations.
I was at the time, I believe I was a lieutenant in the unit. And it was difficult, for somebody who’d been a friend of mine my whole career. And as a result of those investigations, it was determined by the chief and the mayor at the time to terminate him. And obviously things changed. And I’ve worked at Internal Affairs for many years. And now as the deputy and the deputy to Joe Cordeiro, and as chief now for the last four years, I’ve had to discipline, to terminate more officers than I’ve ever wanted to, but unfortunately, it’s part of the job.
That job’s not easy, working on Internal Affairs. The chief and the deputy, that comes with the territory. When you work Internal Affairs, I guess you say. Well, what do you expect? It comes with the territory. But, you don’t win friends in that unit. It’s a challenging unit. Not to blame anybody why I work there, but I was asked to go to that unit. And I believe I was asked to go there because of my integrity. And, I had a job to do when I was there. And unfortunately, when you’re in that unit, you can’t when Jack Spillane comes in front of you, you can’t go this way. And then the next guy comes in front of you, you go different. You got to go right down the middle. And I truly believe I did that. It’s very unfortunate, for people like Bobby who ultimately lost their jobs and their careers. It’s nothing I’m proud of, to say that I was the one that led to that. But I was doing my job, But I really don’t want to speak for Bobby, over his ill will towards me. That’s something for him to speak to. And really, his whole personnel record, I’d rather not get into it. I know some of it’s been put out there. It’s public record. But that particular case, like others that I can think of, very, very challenging over the course of the years.
JS: Chief, soon after you became chief, you were the first chief in New Bedford history to allow the destruction of internal affairs records that were older than seven years, although you didn’t do it for the full records of older than 10 years. Talk about why you decided to do that, because there’s been some criticism of that decision.
PO: I became chief in 2021. 2021, the POST Commission had been formed. That was in the wake —
JS: What is the POST Commission?
PO: The POST Commission was legislated. It’s the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. And basically they were now requiring — many cities, states, have them — and Massachusetts had finally formed one and basically it was going to require all our officers to become certified. So one of the first steps they were going to do in the commission was going to have departments turn over their internal affairs records.
So what we started learning in 2021 with the number of meetings that we were going to, because this was new to all the chiefs — so it was a hot topic at the time — was that you would need to turn over your — But what we learned in 2021 is that POST was not concerned with any of your cases that were not sustained.
They would not be posting any of those. Not only would they not be posting them, they didn’t even want them turned over to them.
JS: Why was that?
PO: Because they were concerned with … they wanted sustained cases. They were concerned that officers … and rightfully so. It’s almost no different than if someone had been charged with drunk driving and they’ve been found not guilty. Should that be something that should be attached to their name for the rest of their life? No, they were found not guilty. It’s just the way the system is.
It had already been determined in 2021, during that time, that these records were not going to be required to post. And unbeknownst to me, I had learned from other chiefs, and I think I even recommended that you reach out to any other chief in the state or especially in the bigger cities, to find out who even was keeping …
When I found out, they said, most departments were saying, “Well, listen, we don’t even have records that are older than seven years.” And I was like, “seven years?” They said, yeah, I didn’t know this. But they said the retention on IA cases were seven years for all cases. So I didn’t know that. So at the time, we had file cabinets and file cabinets of internal affairs records.
JS: So you’re saying New Bedford was unusual?
Yes, yes, yes. Every chief I talked to at the time said “no, we don’t even keep our files after seven years. We destroy them.” So I was unaware of that. So I said, well, I’m going to apply for that to at least get rid of our not sustained cases because now I know those cases … We have an excellent database, anyways.
All those cases are still on record. That’s why some of the cases you see are still there. This wasn’t an attempt … I know I’ve been accused of trying to get rid of cases. I didn’t have any sustained cases. This was never about Paul Oliveira. I didn’t treat Paul Oliveira any different than any man or woman on my police department.
All I said was, I’m going to get rid of cases. But then what I decided to do, instead of destroying every case that was older than seven years — which I could have, that’s what the law allowed, that’s what the instructions said. I said, “no, I’m going to keep every — if you’re an active member of the department still and you have a sustained case, I’m going to keep it. Because I felt with POST coming into play, I didn’t want it to look like …
Put it this way, if POST thought that I was trying to destroy records prior to POST coming into full-blown existence, I would have issues with POST. I’ve had zero issues with POST. As a matter of fact, POST has told us numerous times that we are well in compliance with all POST regulations. So let me just go back to what I ended up doing.
So not only did I go back seven years, I said, we’re going to keep 10 years worth of records. So even though the law allowed seven, my destruction was seven, I said, I’m going to keep 10 years of all records. And then I went a step further and said, if you’re still on the job and you have a sustained case, I’m going to keep that record.
So I went well over and above what was even allowed, but that was the only reason I did that. Yes. Was there a spin on that to make it look like I was trying to destroy? I have nothing in my IA file that has ever hurt me. And put it this way, in 2021, I was the chief of police.
Had I had something, it would have come to light.
JS: Well, if the FBI was trying to investigate cover-ups in the New Bedford Department and your cases were not sustained, but they were covered up, they might have wanted to look at them?
PO: First off, had the FBI been looking at coverups, I think they would have been here long, long, long, long before.
JS: Three times, according to the Globe series.
PO: So they must have all those cases. So, if according to the Globe, if they’ve already been here in the ’90s looking at Paul Oliveira, they have all those cases. There’s none of those cases, I can assure you, that the FBI was concerned of or looking at. There’s nothing there. There was nothing there.
And like I say, there’s still a record of those cases, the electronic copy of the case. Not the whole case file, but what the allegation was and the finding. Like the original on every single other member of the police department. Like I said, I didn’t treat Paul Oliveira any differently than anybody else. This was not done as a way to get rid of files, to hide anything.
If anything, I went over and above. And at the time, the only person … the agency I concerned most about was obviously doing it in accordance with the Secretary of State’s office and then obviously with the POST Commission.
JS: And the purpose of the POST Commission was to take these sustained cases so that if you had a rogue officer, there would be a record of what he had done or she had done in other cases.
PO: That’s correct. But they wanted …
JS: But they drew the line at unsustained ones?
PO: That’s correct. Anything that was exonerated, filed, not sustained, they did not want. That’s correct.
JS: And it was your understanding that was because they thought it’ll just be endless? … In journalism, people make allegations all the time. You investigate the ones that you can pin down. The ones that don’t go anywhere, they just don’t go anywhere.
PO: Why would they want cases? Why would ….
JS: If there are cover-ups there might be a reason to look into them …
PO: If there was a cover up on a 25-year-old IA case, that would have already been exposed. POST didn’t come into existence to start reopening every single not-sustained case. I mean, we got to have some trust in our profession that the internal affairs cases were done with some integrity. And I think if you look at New Bedford’s records, if you look at the amount of records that I’ve overseen in my career as internal affairs, I believe it’s almost 600 files that have come across my desk.
I think there’s a sustained rate of like 43% — well higher than the national average — of sustained cases. So to say that New Bedford or me or anybody else in this department, any of my predecessors, that there was a cop … we had an internal affairs unit back before many police departments, even had them. From what I remember, when Dave Provencher created that unit as a captain under, I don’t know if that was Carl Moniz or it might have been [Richard] Benoit.
So New Bedford’s had a very good, longstanding, very credible, internal affairs file, and I would encourage you to reach out to POST and ask them about the integrity of our cases, whether the cases are 25 years old or 20 years old, it doesn’t matter who they involve. But to say that there was worried about cover ups in IA …
No, IA unit …for someone that worked there as a lieutenant, as a captain, I say there’s full integrity in our internal affairs. Don’t forget that internal affairs file is looked at, usually, through the city solicitor at some times. And they never mind if there’s serious discipline. The mayor is looking at that investigation and then the union attorneys.
So there’s a lot of scrutiny.
JS: Who do you think these FBI sources are, talking about investigating you?
PO: I have no idea. I have no idea, Jack. That was news to me when I when I see that and I don’t know.
JS: But now we’re going to have an internal investigation as well as an invitation for the FBI to look into.
PO: Yeah. The mayor has brought in [21CP] and another well-known national company to come in and look at our policies, procedures and our practices.
JS: It’s also … the FBI.
PO: Yes, and he referred the story back to them.
JS: Some might argue the mayor is paying for the report. He’s going to get a report that he pays for.
PO: Well, I guess you could say that, but you’d have to go talk to these companies, because I know when we worked with Jensen Hughes, these companies … they’re going to put down on paper what they find. I think there’s way too much of their reputation on the line. And if you’re doing something wrong, I think they’re going to tell you you’re doing something wrong.
They’ve seen enough bad misconduct in our profession. I think the last thing they want to do is put their name on a document, just because you’re paying me money, to say everything’s wonderful here only to find out that … New Bedford’s not going out, to their credit, and this is over the years, from what I’ve seen, they’ve never gone out to skimp on a price and say “we’re going to just pay somebody to kind of just check the boxes here to give us what we want to hear.”
When you go out and you hire Bill Bratton, and then you go out and hire Jensen Hughes, a company out of Chicago. There’s no interest for Jensen Hughes to come in here and tell us what we want to hear. … I don’t think so.
JS: Chief, we’ll wrap it up. You’ve been very generous with your time. And I appreciate this interview. Is there anything that I didn’t ask about? I try to think of everything that was covered of significance. Any theory of this case, of this reporting or anything you want to bring to my attention … The Light’s attention … that I haven’t asked about. You can always call me back later …
PO: The only thing I say, Jack: After 32 years in this career, I’m very happy. And I’m very thankful to the city. And it’s very unfortunate, I think, that the city to again, deal with another black eye from this reporting. So for them to parachute in here and, and write this report …
I’m retiring. But it is hurtful to me to know that the city has to deal with this, and the men and women still have to deal with this. I think it’s very unfortunate.
I know leaving here, I’ve had a great career, and I want to thank the city. I thank the men and women of this police department. They’ve been amazing.
And there’s so much good work that gets done in this city, and it gets overlooked. And, are we perfect as a police department? No. And I don’t know of any police department — God forbid if they do say they’re perfect. But, do I think we do a damn good job? Yeah, you better believe we do.
And am I proud of my four years as chief? I am. I’m proud of my four years and proud of my predecessors that have all done this job for me. I think they’ve done a great job. They’ve put me in a place and they’ve trained me and equipped me to do my job.
And like I say, we have some amazing men and women here that go out on a daily basis and do incredible work. And that’s really … that’s my story anyway, as I walk out the door, is the great work that gets done here on a day-to-day basis. To have it clouded over by some, unfortunately, by some scorned, some unreliable scorned people … It’s unfortunate. But I’m confident the city survives. The future of the department’s in good hands and will survive too.
But I appreciate you coming in and also giving me the opportunity, because I did feel at the time … I felt somewhat helpless when all these allegations get thrown against you.
And, I don’t really believe that anybody was really looking to hear my story. So I do appreciate you reaching out.
JS: This is Jack Spillane of The New Bedford Light. Now, we’ve been talking to Chief Paul Oliveira about the recent publicity around confidential informants in the City in New Bedford. Thank you, chief.
