Новые сообщения экс-полицейского Майкла Проктора ставят под сомнение честность расследований в отношении меньшинств

The Karen Read murder case revealed that former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor sent misogynistic text messages, but the full scope of bigotry remained in the shadows. That’s changing now, as more of his communications are appearing in recent legal filings in other cases. The ripple effects could be widespread. The newly released messages contain a host of racist slurs, hateful language, and abhorrent jokes that together raise significant questions about the integrity of Proctor’s criminal investigations, especially in cases involving people of color and other minorities. It’s the latest revelation in a protracted legal saga that has captivated a national audience and tarnished the reputation of Massachusetts law enforcement. The implications are already being weighed in the 2021 murder case against Myles King, a Black man seeking to have his charges dismissed on the grounds that Proctor’s bigotry infected the entire investigation. “You don’t just leave your racism at the courthouse doors,” King’s attorney Rosemary Scapicchio said in a phone interview. “This is an ingrained hatred of an entire race. … How in the world do you say it’s a valid investigation?” Read filed a lawsuit last month against the State Police and the town of Canton, which employed sergeant Sean Goode, another investigator who recently resigned from his job. Citing more of Proctor’s messages, the lawsuit accuses both entities of hiring “virulent bigots whose hatred for anyone and everyone different from themselves permeates their every action.” Read was accused of killing her boyfriend, former Boston police Officer John O’Keefe, by hitting him with her car in January, 2022. She alleged a law enforcement coverup and was acquitted in a second criminal trial last year after the first jury deadlocked. Proctor, the lead State Police homicide investigator in the high-profile case, was fired last year after he testified in Read’s first trial, where he was forced to share some of the crude comments he’d made about her. She’s currently fighting a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the O’Keefe family. While Read attracted a large fanbase and got access to copious legal resources, defense attorneys now argue that Proctor’s investigations into lesser-known, more disenfranchised defendants deserve just as much scrutiny. The state’s chief public defender recently called for a comprehensive audit of all cases investigated by Proctor, both open and closed, saying the new messages “point to serious bias and misconduct.” Similar questions are becoming central to the case against King, who’s charged with fatally shooting Marquis Simmons, 25, as he rode a moped through Milton in summer 2021. Records recently unsealed in that case include roughly 35 pages of material from a WhatsApp group chat between Proctor and several friends, including Goode. They became public after prosecutors and the defense agreed to their release, pending redactions to the contact information of other members of the chat. A judge allowed the release over the objections of Proctor, who said it would subject him to more scrutiny and “result in a further and unwarranted intrusion” into his private life. Dating back to 2013, the messages are riddled with racial slurs, including the N-word. “I was planning on tying up a [expletive] and dragging him from my bumper through the streets of Randolph,” Proctor said in 2016, according to the records. “Eat a [expletive] Ghana. Let’s enslave those [expletive]s my car needs a cleaning,” he said in June 2014. Months later, he told one friend, “let’s get some horses and white sheets and burn a cross in the arboretum.” Proctor described his favorite movie theater as a place without Black people. He suggested using them as “dart boards” and compared them to animals, according to the records. His friends chimed in with similar enthusiasm, egging each other on. Besides Goode, the others haven’t been publicly identified. Interspersed among the racist diatribes were offhand comments about sports, movies, breakfast foods, and other mundane topics. By continuing to pursue charges against King, Norfolk County prosecutors are failing to acknowledge the seriousness of Proctor’s bias, defense attorney Scapicchio has argued in court records. “The message currently being sent is that it is acceptable to be a police officer and to hold beliefs that Black people are animals responsible for all crime,” she wrote. Scapicchio had filed a motion last year requesting access to information on Proctor’s personal phone, which she said was necessary to investigate his motives in this case. The motion was granted. In his ruling, Judge Michael P. Doolin cited a “pattern of bias and misconduct by Proctor … that fairly suggests there may have been similar impropriety in this case and casts doubt on his credibility as an investigator generally.” Proctor later filed his own motion, saying he got a new phone in February 2024 and started using an auto-delete feature that erases its contents monthly. It’s therefore “unlikely that Mr. Proctor has any relevant information in his possession concerning this case,” his attorneys wrote. The unearthed WhatsApp messages suggest otherwise. Norfolk County prosecutors recently began disclosing potentially exculpatory evidence from the phone to defendants in other relevant cases. Read’s attorneys also requested to use the material in civil litigation. Their recent lawsuit cites a series of audio messages in which Proctor casually drops the N-word, demeans women, and jokes about planting drugs on someone. Referring to a car crash in Canton, Proctor tells Goode, using a racial slur: “Actually, take your time, I saw a [expletive] was involved, so I wouldn’t rush if you’re working. Let them die,” according to the lawsuit. Lawyers for Proctor didn’t respond to a request for comment. Read’s attorneys say the case sends a strong message to law enforcement. “The days of hiding behind badges and promotions while peddling vile bigotry are over,” attorney Aaron Rosenberg said in a recent statement. “The truth is coming, and with it an unflinching reckoning.” The US attorney’s office in Massachusetts previously convened a federal grand jury to examine the state’s handling of the Read murder investigation; it’s not clear whether the newly released communications were reviewed as part of that probe, which didn’t result in any charges. Federal prosecutors later turned over a trove of sealed records to lawyers on both sides of the criminal case. Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey has called the communications “egregious and offensive.” He’s promised his office will continue working with defense counsel “to ensure a fair and ethical prosecution of all defendants.” The office is also cooperating with recent requests from the state’s Committee for Public Counsel Services, specifically “regarding the identification of individuals involved in these text messages and the auditing of existing and older cases,” according to agency spokesperson Bob McGovern. The committee made a similar request to State Police. In a response letter to the committee last week, Jennifer Staples, State Police chief legal counsel, said officials have compiled spreadsheets listing all the cases involving Proctor, organized by his level of involvement. She said they’re cooperating with prosecutors and the courts, “assisting with a lawful and orderly assessment of any issues that may affect pending cases, closed matters, or post-conviction proceedings.” She also explicitly acknowledged the seriousness of the situation: “The abhorrent statements made by Mr. Proctor reveal that this former employee held beliefs and engaged in conduct that is profoundly inconsistent with the Department’s values, professional standards, and expectations for all sworn members,” the letter said. It remains to be seen how the legal system will handle the cases in question, including ongoing homicide prosecutions. Chris Dearborn, a professor at Suffolk University Law School, said he thinks any investigation Proctor touched should be closely reexamined. “His conduct was shocking, offensive, and abhorrent,” Dearborn said. “As far as I’m concerned, you can’t trust a single thing he put in a police report at this point.” Lea Skene can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @lea_skene.