Swastika allegation upended discipline against another officer, report shows

Mar. 19—MARBLEHEAD — Months before a Marblehead police officer resigned last December after being accused of scratching a swastika on another officer's vehicle in 2019, police got a call to go to a small commercial strip mall on Pleasant Street.

It was sometime around 2 a.m. on May 19 when a resident living nearby reported what appeared to be a domestic violence incident to police.

A man was arrested at the scene. But his girlfriend — initially believed to be a victim — would go on to provide "a litany of contradicting statements" that night and in the weeks following the incident, an internal affairs report concluded.

That report came after the woman complained she was the victim of profiling, threats and being "body slammed" by a Marblehead police officer. Her complaint led to a two-month internal affairs investigation.

Initially, that investigation led a police captain to conclude there was evidence that Officer Christopher Gallo had shoved the woman into a wall — a conclusion based in part on statements by three other officers.

One of those officers was Timothy Tufts, who resigned from the department in December over an allegation that he had scratched a swastika into a fellow officer's personal vehicle.

It was during the subsequent disciplinary process against Gallo that the swastika incident came to light, Marblehead police Chief Robert Picariello acknowledged Tuesday, shortly after releasing the internal affairs report and a supplemental report into the May 19 incident.

In the supplemental report, written by Picariello and the town's labor attorney, Marc Miller, Gallo has been "exonerated" from the earlier finding by the police captain that Gallo had used excessive force and was untruthful.

The chief and lawyer did find that Gallo's conduct "fell below the professional standards required by the Marblehead police department, in that he failed to timely respond to the dispatch related to the incident and that he failed to complete a sufficiently detailed police report."

The reports were released Tuesday under a public records request The Salem News first made in December.

After the swastika incident was brought to his attention, Picariello said, he was concerned that it undermined the credibility of Tufts, and would have opened up any testimony at a disciplinary or civil service hearing to be called into question.

He also said the video surveillance that the internal affairs investigator relied upon was not conclusive as to what happened that night.

Picariello, who is scheduled to retire this year, called the situation "a bit of a mess."

"I took the amount of action I could based on the evidence I had in front of me," Picariello said. He also said he followed the department's progressive discipline policy regarding the violations of department rules that were found to have happened that night.

According to Capt. Matthew Freeman's Aug. 4 internal affairs report, a dispatcher asked Gallo to go to Miller Plaza, a row of businesses that includes a 7-Eleven, in response to a call from a nearby resident who saw an incident there.

Gallo did not respond immediately to the dispatcher's radio calls. After 8 minutes without a response from Gallo, Sgt. Jason Conrad called Gallo's cell phone, and Gallo finally responded to the dispatcher. It was 11 minutes in total before Gallo arrived at Miller Plaza.

As a result of the delay, the town was required to call in mutual aid from Swampscott to handle other calls, the report said.

"This unacceptable delay placed officers and the public in danger," Freeman wrote. "Had (Officer) Gallo monitored and answered his radio, that mutual aid request would not have been necessary."

At the scene, the woman, who police say may have been under the influence of alcohol, marijuana and prescription medication, was also upset that her dog was missing (it was later found in a vestibule at a Bank of America branch). She was described as "belligerent, boisterous, profane and uncooperative with officers" at the scene, and "could have been taken under arrest for disorderly person or placed in protective custody for alcohol/drug impairment," Freeman wrote.

But believing that she was the victim of domestic abuse and that an arrest could exacerbate what they believed to be her trauma, police opted not to arrest her.

Gallo said in interviews that he held the woman by her upper arm. But in separate interviews, the other officers at the scene, Tufts, Conrad and Luke Peters, say he went further, though they each saw the encounter from different angles.

Peters, who was about 15 feet away, said he saw Gallo use both hands to push or shove the woman against a piece of plywood that was covering damage on the wall, as he yelled at her.

Tufts account of the incident was similar. According to Freeman's report, Tufts said he was about 2 feet away when he saw Gallo "take his left hand and grabbed her like lapel — right hand looked like it was on her stomach — and then he brought his hips in close to her and he pushed off with I believe his right foot and he just full on, like right to the wall, like threw his hips into it, threw his shoulders into it." Tufts also said he heard the woman's body hit the wall. He, like Peters, said Gallo was yelling at the woman.

Conrad, on the other hand, said he saw Gallo "put" the woman "against a wall briefly and justifiably."

A paramedic called to the scene told Freeman that he saw the woman "possibly bump into one or both of the officers" "and that she was put up against the wall when that happened."

Freeman wrote in his Aug. 4 report, "By all accounts, the security camera footage from (7-Eleven) appears to depict (Officer) Gallo shoving (the woman) into the wall as corroborated by Officers Peters and Tufts."

Freeman also concluded that Tufts had placed his hand on the woman's shoulder to get her to sit down during the encounter.

He said both Gallo and Tufts should have filed a "use of force" form after the incident and that Conrad should have known one was required — though Picariello said on Tuesday that there appears to have been some misunderstanding as to the department's policy and that the department is now re-designing its manual to make that information clearer.

The identity of both the woman and the man who was arrested have been redacted from the report provided to the newspaper.

And because the arrest was related to alleged domestic violence, his name and charges did not appear in the department's police log for that night. That's the result of a 2014 amendment to public records law that requires police to withhold all domestic violence and sexual assault calls and arrests from their public logs.

Picariello said that the charges against the man, who had no criminal record, were subsequently dropped.

The woman's complaint also alleged that she and her boyfriend were "profiled" because he has a beard and they dressed like "hippies," and that during the incident, an officer used a vulgarity toward her.

Police found no basis for the profiling complaint, pointing to the woman's own conflicting statements about how she was dressed that night — she had reported she was wearing Birkenstock sandals and a "Life is Good" T-shirt but that was contradicted by the video.

The woman also initially misidentified the officer she said shoved her. Police said there was no evidence that the officer she initially identified had any physical contact with her.

Asked about the surveillance video, Picariello said he would not release that unless and until he could find a way to blur or hide the woman's face.

Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, by email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @SNJulieManganis.