IN FACEBOOK POSTS railing about new state gun laws, Ware Police Chief Shawn Crevier stepped over the fuzzy ethical line between sharing his views on the potential safety impacts of the new law and expressing prohibited personal political opinions in his official capacity.
The State Ethics Commission issued a public education letter – but no fine – to Crevier late last week, it said in a statement, “because the conflict of interest law’s application to political activity by public employees is complex, easily misunderstood, and in need of further public clarification.”
According to the Ethics Commission, Creiver in July 2023 had a police department administrative officer draft a statement opposing the House’s recently passed set of gun reforms and post it to the Ware Police Department Facebook page signed as “Ware PD.”
Three other posts on the page followed in the next year, “which encouraged people to advocate against the bills, which they characterized as ‘treasonous’ and ‘seditious,’ and referenced the opposition of a private organization of law enforcement officials of which Crevier was a member,” the commission said.
As the Senate considered its own set of regulations, a later post decried that the chamber was “crafting a SECOND potentially nefarious and unjust bill. Remain vigilant! We cannot allow partisan politics and corrupt bureaucracies to curb-stomp the liberties that generations before us fought so hard to preserve.”
The posts were shared more than 10,000 times all together, covered extensively, and even reprinted in local publications as stand-alone letters.
Crevier called for people to contact elected representatives in opposition to the law, which expanded red flag laws and sensitive gun free zones and implemented new rules around untraceable “ghost guns.” Gov. Maura Healey signed the final version into law in July.
Just after the Ethics Commission announced the decision, Crevier told Western Mass News, “I stand by my post and I truly believe, as well as many others, that this new gun law does nothing to protect the public safety. The House and Senate should focus on holding these criminals accountable for their actions.”
Under state conflict of interest laws, public officials are generally not allowed to use public resources to conduct political activities. However, the Ethics Commission notes, there is an exception for “appointed employees in policy-making positions to use public resources to engage in certain limited types of political activity relating to matters within the purview of their agencies.”
Crevier could, potentially, have used those public resources – including his title, staff time, and the Ware Police Department Facebook page – to “provide factual information that could help legislators make informed, fact-based decisions about the proposed gun law reform bills as they would potentially affect matters within the WPD’s purview,” according to the Ethics Commission.
He also could have stated his opinions on the gun law’s effect on public safety, but only if it “was based on objectively verifiable facts and not on personal opposition to increased gun control.”
The posts and letters went far afield of that restriction, with Crevier objecting to the law on Second Amendment grounds and seemingly based on personal distaste.
“Let us come together as a true Constitutional Republic and show our representatives, who are bound to uphold the rules established in that Constitution, that we will not rest until this nauseating Bill is annihilated before it is enacted into law,” he wrote last August.
In its public education letter, the Ethics Commission lays out what Crevier – and other law enforcement officials – can and cannot do under the conflict of interest law.
His case was one of two ethics sanctions directed at Massachusetts law enforcement officials last week. Bristol County deputy sheriff Floyd Teague was hit with $40,000 in ethics fines and $25,000 in “economic advantage damages” for illegally steering a modular home toward his wife at auction, leading to a nearly $245,000 gain.
Crevier’s case was not so clear cut. The Ware Police posts did make mention of public safety, but the statements were bound up in personal objection based on political beliefs.
”Instead of jeopardizing the Constitutional rights of responsible gun owners,” Crevier wrote, “we urge Congress to pursue solutions that target the root causes of violence, such as improving access to mental health services, reshaping and healing our societal infrastructure, and preventing repeat offenders from walking the streets with utter impunity.”
The position of police chief does not charge Crevier with making determinations about whether or not a law is “treasonous” or “seditious,” nor to pontificate on the importance of Second Amendment rights, the Ethics Commission letter says.
“Instead of appropriately contributing to the public discussion concerning the proposed legislation by, for example, explaining the practical impacts the gun law reforms would have on the WPD and public safety in Ware, you in effect turned the WPD Facebook page into a virtual soapbox for your personal opposition to increased gun control and a platform for other gun control opponents,” the Ethics Commission letter said. “For example, you called on those who ‘value their 2nd Amendment rights’ to oppose the bill and declared that the WPD was defending the rights of community members by opposing the bill. In short, you used the WPD Facebook page to rally political opposition to the bill based on your personal view that it would improperly limit your and other gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.”
The new law is already being challenged in court by the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League, a local affiliate of the National Rifle Association, and at the ballot box by a Second Amendment rights group. They object to certain licensing requirements laid out in the new law, arguing they are unnecessarily burdensome and unconstitutional.
Law enforcement organizations in Massachusetts haven’t walked fully in lockstep on the new gun law.
In Massachusetts, local police departments are, for the most part, the licensing authority for gun owners. Departments tout seizures of exactly the types of illegal and untraceable weapons targeted by some of the new legislation, and point to the increased danger for officers when they face armed suspects.
Since the law’s passage, some police chiefs have offered support for the changes.
“When new technology or things pop up, I think we need to be nimble enough to address them,” Franklin County Sheriff Christopher Donelan told the Athol Daily News, adding that 3D and ghost guns are an attempt to circumvent a system of firearm registration and required training.
At the same time, police wield deadly force with the sanction of the state and often bristle against generalized firearm regulations rather than regulations that they believe would deter criminal use of guns.
Crevier in the Ware Police Department posts made frequent mention of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association (MCOPA), which voted to oppose the House’s version of the gun bill.
Retiredchief for the Northborough Police Department Mark Leahy and then-MCOPA executive director testified that “[o]ur strict Massachusetts gun laws work. The registration of firearms will not reduce gun violence. Limiting where lawfully licensed firearms holders may go – including your off-duty police officers and state troopers – will not reduce gun violence. Criminals will not be deterred by these measures. While there is merit to addressing ghost guns, that can be handled in a stand-alone bill.”
But the group’s leadership got on board with the Senate version, with Agawam Police Chief and MCOPA president Eric Gillis appearing alongside Senate leaders at the bill unveiling. Current MCOPA executive director Chief Michael J. Bradley, Jr. offered a positive statement on the final compromise bill at its passage, which organization leadership voted to support.
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