SWAMPSCOTT — MassCOP Local 417 President and Swampscott Police officer Kevin Reen sent an email to the Select Board calling for an “emergency summit” on the town’s police force personnel shortage.
The Swampscott Police Union published the letter, which was originally sent to Select Board members individually last week, on Facebook Tuesday. It accuses Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald of “gross negligence” in his staffing of the department.
“Our police chief has made multiple recommendations of qualified police officer candidates to the town administrator. Yet Mr. Fitzgerald has taken no action on the recommendations and refused to appoint new officers. He has also repeatedly delayed promotions of Swampscott officers that are recommended by the chief – creating unnecessary anxiety within the department,” Reen wrote.
According to the union, the 32-officer Swampscott Police Department currently has eight vacancies — a shortage that Reen said mirrors last year’s “crisis-level” 25% staff shortage that he addressed at a July 2022 Select Board meeting. During last year’s meeting, Reen said the town’s officer-per-resident ratio, then at 1.6 officers per 1,000 residents, fell “dangerously below” the FBI’s guidelines.
The email accused Fitzgerald and the Select Board of using the town’s 2020 decision to leave the state’s civil service system as a way to manipulate the police-hiring process and, consequently, perpetuate the shortage.
“Our biggest fears of leaving civil service have come true: the manipulation of our hiring process by the town administrator and a lack of transparency regarding our staffing crisis,” Reen wrote. “Mr. Fitzgerald’s actions not only undermine the leadership of the Swampscott Police Department, but they also degrade the entire department while placing public safety at risk.”
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Fitzgerald responded to the letter, calling it an unfair “ad hominem attack.” Fitzgerald said the shortages are reflective of a national trend and the length of the department’s hiring process.
A survey from the Police Executive Research Forum found that police hirings took a 4% dip throughout the nation between 2019 and 2021, while the quantity of officers resigning or retiring increased by 45% in that time.
“Last week, I got the full recommendations for candidates after they took their exams in February. It will be next to impossible for individuals to wait that long to be appointed to a position and then wait a few more months to go to an academy and be officially working as a police officer, probably six months later,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re committed to ensuring that we have a strong department, but we certainly need to expedite that process.”
Fitzgerald added that the FBI’s officer-per-resident ratio guidelines do not account for a town like Swampscott, which has a relatively low violent crime rate and population.
In an interview Wednesday, Police Chief Ruben Quesada said that the department must work with the union and the town to find ways to expedite its hiring process. He added that although there is an officer shortage, only 1% of the department’s calls pose an urgent public-safety threat, and the department is equipped to answer its calls for service.
“I am proud of my officers and my department for continuing to answer the call for service… There has not been a change in staffing since last year. We do have the same number of officers on the street,” Quesada said. “This is a national conversation that police organizations and police chiefs are having across the Commonwealth — a lot of it stems from the requirements to become a police officer and how we can reduce that timeline, so we are always looking at ways to expedite that process.”
On the union’s request for an emergency summit meeting, Fitzgerald said that decision would ultimately be in the hands of the Select Board. Select Board Chair David Grishman declined to comment on the issue.
“We’re making progress here, but I don’t want to have all that drowned out by a letter sent off in the middle of the dog days of August, looking to create conflict as opposed to addressing the critical issues that we need to face,” Fitzgerald said.
Select Board member MaryEllen Fletcher, who has been outspoken about addressing the staffing shortage at Select Board meetings, also said the board and the department have to work together to find a solution.
“There’s a serious problem and all of our energy and focus needs to be on hiring and fixing this problem,” Fletcher said.
