Issue Date: 10/05/2006, Posted On: 10/5/2006
Meet Mr. Morality
Ethan Jacobs
ejacobs@baywindows.com
As Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, Reed Hillman brought back the practice of using plainclothes troopers to entrap gay men in cruising sex stings
In 1989, after negotiations with the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, a group focused on addressing anti-gay hate crimes and making sure that the relationship between the LGBT community and law enforcement is fair, the Massachusetts State Police agreed to end the use of undercover cops in public sex busts. Don Gorton, chair of the Anti-Violence Project, which has been largely inactive since 1999, said in 1989 William McCabe, public safety commissioner and head of the state police, offered assurances that undercover officers would only be used to arrest men having sex at rest areas if other methods to stop them failed, and a Sept. 1989 Boston Globe story confirms this agreement. But in 1997, under Reed Hillmans leadership as Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, troopers reversed course and sent a plainclothes officer into a rest stop in Weston to entrap men looking for sex.
Gorton, who provided his notes and other files from his work on the Anti-Violence Project to Bay Windows, said that he set up a meeting in 1997 with Hillman, who is the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, through the Executive Office of Public Safety, which was then led by Kathleen OToole. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss reports Gorton had heard of from men whod been at Blue Hills Reservation and other rest areas and public parks and had been asked to leave by plainclothes state troopers, even though police had no evidence that the men were there in order to have sex. Gorton told Bay Windows that when he initially worked with OTooles office to set up the meeting he was not aware of any recent incidents of police entrapment.
Yet a few days before the meeting, Gorton received a police report from Boston attorney Barbara Macy detailing the arrest the previous month of one of her clients. The report explains that a state trooper, on an undercover foot patrol at the Recreation Road rest area in Weston, had a conversation with Macys client, during which the client asked him about the size of his penis. The troopers report gives no information on how he responded, but the two migrated to a picnic table overlooking the Charles River. Macys client then reportedly grabbed in the area of [the troopers] crotch in an aggressive manner, then pulled out his own penis and began to masturbate, at which time the trooper arrested him.
The meeting took place June 2, 1997 in then-Secretary OTooles office. Present at the meeting were Gorton, Hillman, OToole, Jim Gilbert, who was OTooles general counsel, and Major John DiFava, who had been appointed by Hillman in May to serve as the State Police liaison to the LGBT community.
Gorton brought the police report with him to the meeting. During the meeting, Gorton recalls, he expressed his concern to Hillman that State Police had used an undercover officer to entrap Macys client. I said that there was this operation and there were reports that there were undercover officers, and he said, No, there were no undercover officers being used with respect to that particular operation, said Gorton.
In response to Hillmans comments, Gorton showed him the police report. Clearly he was startled by the report and by the fact that I had it. It clearly took him by surprise. And he retreated to the next line of defense, which was, I didnt know about it. And then he reiterated that he accepted the 1989 understanding which was that they wouldnt use plainclothes officers except as a last resort to discourage unlawful activity, said Gorton.
Gilbert confirmed Gortons account of the meeting, saying Hillman initially said there were no undercover cops used in the Weston arrest. I remember [Hillman] being surprised that he didnt know about it. I think he was surprised that Don had the file, frankly, said Gilbert.
Hillmans campaign did not return a call seeking comment for this story. A letter in Gortons files from Hillman to Gorton dated June 3, 1997 confirms that the meeting took place. In the letter Hillman writes, I felt that everyone had the opportunity to voice their concerns, discuss the issues and agree upon a continuing, open, working relationship with this Department. He makes no reference to the issue of undercover officers used to police cruising areas.
Gorton claims that following that meeting State Police were involved in another undercover operation in Weston in which 11 men were arrested on public sex charges. Gorton said Weston police served as the undercover decoys while State Police participated as observers. Bay Windows requested information about the alleged arrest from the State Police on Oct. 3, but they were unable to provide it by deadline, so Bay Windows was unable to confirm whether that operation took place. Gorton claims at a June 17 meeting DiFava agreed that State Police would no longer collaborate with local law enforcement in using plainclothes officers to conduct public sex stings.
DiFava said he remembered both meetings taking place. But he disputed Gorton and Gilberts claims that state troopers were going undercover to entrap gay men. Back in those days we did not have the personnel to put in those parks to begin with even in uniform, never mind plainclothes, said DiFava.
Yet the police report detailing the incident was filed by a state trooper who states he was on an undercover foot patrol, and the report also says the trooper identified himself as a state trooper when arresting Macys client.
DiFava did confirm that at the second meeting he promised Gorton that state troopers would not partner on operations to arrest men having sex in parks and rest areas with local police departments that were using plainclothes officers. He said he was unsure whether troopers had taken part in such collaborations prior to that meeting.
Despite Hillmans assurances, the State Polices treatment of gay men in public parks and rest areas continued to be an issue after both meetings. In 1999, a man known only as John Doe, filed a complaint against the State Police charging that a state trooper had twice ejected him from public rest areas because he had once been convicted of a misdemeanor charge of lewd and lascivious behavior after having sex with another man in a rest stop. That complaint lead to a 2001 settlement between the State Police and Gay and Lesbian Advocates outlining the guidelines under which someone could be arrested for having had sex in public. The guidelines, which made headlines and drew condemnation from then-Gov. Paul Cellucci, essentially ordered police to take a more restricted approach to arresting men having sex on public land; if the people having sex take steps to insure that they will not be seen by the public, such as by hiking into a secluded area, they cannot be arrested. (By the time of the settlement, Hillman was no longer Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police he had gone on to run for public office and was a state representative from Sturbridge; DiFava, who had been promoted, was the Superintendent.)
DiFava credited Hillman for taking steps as leader of the State Police to make the department more gay-friendly, particularly by appointing him the liaison to the community.
In so many different areas, this is one of those areas, Reed Hillman had the guts to start change within the Department of State Police, and I have a lot of respect for him for that, said DiFava. He said the groundwork laid by Hillman enabled him to appoint two openly gay members of the department as liaisons to the gay and lesbian community when he succeeded Hillman in 1999.
Yet in addition to the ongoing problem of police entrapment
, Gilbert said that Hillman failed to show leadership in making the State Police a gay-friendly organization. Prior to the June 2, 1997 meeting, Gilbert, who is gay, said he and OToole had pushed Hillman to name a State Police liaison to the gay and lesbian community as a way to begin addressing some of the concerns aimed at the department. Gilbert said that he urged Hillman to select an openly gay person for the job. Instead Hillman selected DiFava.
[DiFava] was a great guy and he was a good appointment, but the reason DiFava was appointed was there was a real lack of openly gay or lesbian gay troopers who would have felt comfortable to step into that position just given the culture of the State Police under Reed Hillman, said Gilbert.
OToole, who currently serves as chief inspector of Irelands national police force, the Garda Síochána, did not respond to a request to comment for this story made through the Garda Síochánas press office.
