A police officer accused of rampant sexual harassment, another who faced charges of raping a teenage homeless girl and a third charged with possessing explicit images of children are among the latest crop of officers decertified by the Massachusetts law enforcement watchdog.
Stripped of their state-issued policing licenses, the three officers — former Fitchburg Police Officer James McCall, former Lowell Police Officer Kevin Garneau and former Methuen Police Officer Matthew Bistany — will be barred from working for a police department or sheriff’s office in the Bay State.
The state’s police oversight board, the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, revoked the officers’ certifications in closed-door votes last week, according to documents posted on its website.
The board, known by the acronym POST, has decertified 60 officers since 2023, determining that they should be banned from carrying a badge and a gun in Massachusetts.
James McCall — Fitchburg
In its order decertifying McCall, the commission outlined allegations of years of on-the-job sexual misbehavior over his 19-year career.
In one instance, McCall texted a photograph of his genitals to a female coworker. In another case, he made sexual advances on a teenager who would later be hired by the Fitchburg Police Department, according to the commission.
The commission’s findings, based on internal investigations and testimony from Fitchburg Police officials, lay out a range of other workplace harassment, as well as two consensual sexual encounters with female civilians during work hours.
The investigations also probed a February 2023 incident in which McCall was accused of making sexually suggestive remarks to a teenage high school student over Snapchat. The department investigated and ultimately fired McCall in August 2023, according to the commission.
McCall challenged the decision with the state’s Civil Service Commission. In December 2023, after a Fitchburg Police investigation found he had sexually harassed several coworkers, he settled with the city and dropped the appeal of his termination. In return, the city rescinded the firing and allowed McCall to resign. The agreement did not include any admission of wrongdoing on McCall’s part, the POST Commission wrote in its notice of his decertification.
In an email to MassLive, McCall said he plans to challenge the decertification.
“I strongly disagree with the Commission’s decision, which I believe is both erroneous and unjustified,” he wrote. “I will be initiating a formal appeal through the appropriate legal channels to ensure the matter receives the thorough and impartial review it warrants.”
Kevin Garneau — Lowell
Garneau was charged in 2019 with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who was then living in a tent in Lowell.
While on duty and working as part of an outreach group established to prevent drug overdoses, Garneau entered the girl’s tent and told her he had warrants for her arrest. If she provided sexual services, he said he would not arrest her, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
Garneau sexually assaulted the girl several other times in the months following, prosecutors said.
However, the state dropped its two rape charges in 2023 as the case was set to go to trial. Garneau’s accuser declined to take the stand, and without her testimony, prosecutors felt they could not prove the case, the Lowell Sun reported at the time.
Robert Normandin, an attorney for Garneau, told the paper his client disputed the girl’s account. He argued she had come forward because Garneau arrested her father, leading to his deportation.
On behalf of Garneau, Normandin declined to comment when reached by MassLive on Wednesday.
In its decertification order, the commission also cited Garneau for “a pattern of unprofessional police conduct,” including pointing his stun gun at colleagues, making offensive comments about a female colleague’s physical appearance, disclosing health conditions of people he worked with through the outreach group and behaving in a manner “that caused his colleagues to fear or distrust him, including having explosive outbursts of anger.”
Like McCall, Garneau was fired by his department and appealed to the Civil Service Commission, but withdrew his petition in return for a settlement with the town that allowed him to retire.
Matthew Bistany — Methuen
Members of the Massachusetts State Police arrested Bistany in 2023 at his home in Methuen, charging him with one count of possessing explicit images of children. The state police had begun an investigation after receiving a tip that the images had been uploaded to an IP address later linked to Bistany.
The case concluded in May when Bistany agreed to plead guilty to the single charge in Essex Superior Court. He was sentenced to three years of probation with conditions that he register as a sex offender and receive ongoing treatment and counseling.
The commission is required to decertify any officer convicted of a felony.
An attorney for Bistany did not respond to a request for comment.
Garneau and Bistany agreed to their decertifications with the POST Commission, akin to a plea deal a criminal defendant may take to avoid a lengthy legal process.
The board is the product of state-level policing reforms established after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Of the 60 police officers it has decertified since 2023, many — though not all — had been convicted on criminal charges. The cases ranged from financial crimes to child exploitation to drunk driving.
The commission can also decertify officers for egregious but noncriminal misconduct. It has used that power to ban officers accused of repeatedly using excessive force, falsifying records and using drugs or alcohol on the job.
The names of all decertified officers are also submitted to a national registry of decertified police, a move designed to alert faraway departments to the officers’ histories if they cross state lines in search of police work.
Recent POST Commission stories
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