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Crime and Public Safety

Shirley prison inmate charged with attack on corrections officer

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SHIRLEY — An inmate at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Shirley has been charged with allegedly beating a corrections officer with a metal pole while at a prison recreational facility in August.

A press release from Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office states Roy Booth, 40, who is serving a life sentence for a murder in Virginia, was indicted by a Middlesex grand jury on Wednesday and charged with crimes including armed assault with intent to murder for the alleged attack.

The release states the corrections officer, 36-year-old Matthew Tidman, of Lunenburg, is in intensive care at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, where he has been since the alleged crime took place on Aug. 31.

“This incident highlights the dangers corrections officers face every day while performing their duties,” Ryan said in the release. “Officer Tidman still has a very long road ahead of him and we know that this frightening incident of workplace violence will have a lasting impact on his family and colleagues.”

The release states that a preliminary investigation suggests that shortly after 2 p.m. Aug. 31, Booth was in the recreation facility in the medium-security area of MCI-Shirley when he took the 10- to 15-pound metal pole and attacked Tidman, striking him multiple times. According to the release, Tidman had been monitoring the inmates in the recreation facility at the time of the alleged incident.

Corrections officers were able to restrain Booth after the attack and provided aid to Tidman who, the release states, was transported by medical helicopter to Lahey Hospital. Booth was immediately transferred to protective custody at MCI-Souza Baranowski, which is a facility adjacent to the Shirley prison, according to the release.

As part of the investigation, Ryan’s office and State Police detectives obtained a video of the alleged attack and conducted interviews at the facility.

“The subsequent investigation revealed that Booth allegedly unscrewed the object used to strike Officer Tidman, which had been part of a weight-lifting apparatus, and concealed it as he approached and then attacked,” the release states.

Booth had been transferred from Virginia to Massachusetts in March 2021 to serve his life sentence as part of the Interstate Corrections Compact, in which, in certain circumstances, inmates are transferred between states, according to the release.

In addition to armed assault with intent to murder, Booth was additionally charged with assault and battery causing serious bodily injury, and mayhem. He will be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court in October.

The release states the prosecutors assigned to the case are Thomas Brant and Yashmeen Desai. The victim witness advocate is Susie Marshall.

A GoFundMe account was organized by Brandie Young earlier this month to assist the Tidman family.

“While Matt fights for his life and remains in critical condition, his family remains by his side,” Young posted on the account page. “Matt is someone who is the first to lend a helping hand no matter the situation and now is our time to do the same for him and his family.”

A link to the GoFundMe account, encouraging the community to donate, was posted by state Sen. John Cronin on his Facebook page.

“Our Correction Officers do dangerous and unheralded work every day and need our support,” Cronin wrote in the post. “Please keep Matt Tidman in your prayers as he fights for his life.”

As of Wednesday, the account has raised more than $108,000.

Follow Aaron Curtis on Twitter @aselahcurtis

Behavioral, mental health center to open in 2023

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BILLERICA — The Middlesex County Restoration Center, a proposed crisis-diversion facility, is closer to being realized, said members of the commission who have been working since 2018 to develop the innovative mental and behavioral health intervention project.

Town Manager John Curran hosted Monday’s roundtable, chaired by Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, at which he and U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan (MA-3), along with other commission representatives and partners, announced a $1.65 million federal investment for the center. This money is in addition to the $5 million in American Rescue Act Plan money that the commission was awarded earlier this year.

The funds will be used to open a mental and behavioral health center next year that will offer wrap-around clinician-based services in lieu of traditional arrest-and-incarceration policing strategies. Although the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office has been the driving force behind the project, the facility will be run by clinicians and medical professionals. No location has been selected, but Greater Lowell, MetroWest and the southeastern part of Middlesex County are under consideration.

Calling the Restoration Center a “model for crisis diversion,” Koutoujian bluntly offered that “we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. For far too long, law enforcement has had to shoulder the burden of the mental health crisis response in the commonwealth. You shouldn’t have to come to jail to get good treatment; you should be able to get it out in the community.”

He referenced statistics that show that an increasing number of individuals are entering the criminal justice system with unaddressed and undiagnosed behavioral health issues.

“Jails have become our de facto mental health treatment facilities,” Koutoujian said. “Rikers Island in New York, Los Angeles County jail, and Cook County jail in Chicago, are the largest public health providers in the entire country.”

The mental health crisis is increasing in the commonwealth, despite world-class area hospitals said Koutoujian, a problem that has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic and an ongoing substance abuse epidemic.

“In January 2019, 11% of my incarcerated population had a diagnosed mental health condition,” Koutoujian said. “Today that number is 44%. In fact, 40% of those who come into the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction have to be medically detoxed. The acuity level of the individuals we encounter in our care is actually much higher.”

Trahan secured nearly $8 million in federal money for Third District projects, including the Restoration Center, part of the comprehensive government funding package signed into law by President Joe Biden in March.

She spoke to the how the Center will reimagine modern policing and the community response to mental health and substance abuse issues, joking that Koutoujian buttonholed her with the idea for the center right after she entered Congress.

“The sheriff, co-chair Danna Mauch (President and CEO of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health), and I (along with state Sen. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington) worked hard to secure this community project funding,” Trahan said, “because we recognize that now, more than ever, we need to invest in mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention programs in our communities.”

Law enforcement was represented at the panel by Billerica Police Chief Roy Frost and Chelmsford Lt. Todd Ahern, both of whom have been at the forefront of reinventing the community policing model, effectively anticipating the need for the kind of behavioral services the Center will provide.

Frost was instrumental in establishing the Police Mental Health Collaborative and Jail Diversion program for Billerica that recognized the significant increase in mental health issues, and diverted appropriate cases to mental health services rather than the enforcement side of the justice system.

Ahern serves as the Chelmsford police department’s Wellness, Mental Health and Outreach Program officer.

Billerica and Chelmsford are also part of a regional Front-Line Initiative, a regional police mental-health collaborative with the police departments of Tewksbury, Dracut and Tyngsboro.

Frost, who took over the top job in December 2021, called mental health a unique form of illness that requires unique policing tactics such as de-escalation and stabilization to keep both the community members and the officers safe.

“Many times, these crimes that happen, that we respond to, they’re the result of a mental health or substance abuse crisis,” Frost said. “We know that unless we address the bigger issue of whatever is going wrong with this person, that it’s going to continue. To have a place like the Restoration Center focusing on that issue of mental health will be very helpful to Billerica and other communities.”

Ahern called the center part of an evolutionary process over the last ten years in trying to respond to mental health challenges in modern policing.

“We’re going in the right direction,” Ahern said. “The center is the big missing piece, and it’s going to make our job a lot easier.”

There are state-level plans to create crisis intervention centers to build out on the restoration center model, Koutoujian said.

“These are smaller models, without all the resources our pilot will bring, but we’re building up a network of mental health care.”

Eventually, the goal is to reorient behavioral health care away from the criminal justice system of incarceration or by depending on hospital emergency room care, which state Rep. and commission member Ken Gordon, of Bedford, said is inefficient and expensive.

“This is a real win-win,” Gordon said. “It’s a way to address problems of people who are interacting with the police or health care system because of untreated mental illness or substance abuse issues.”

Koutoujian agreed saying that, “This is the future not just in policing, but also in behavioral health.”

‘Just Policing: My Journey to Police Reform’ offers insight on hot button social issue

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FITCHBURG — The hot button subject of police reform is at the core of a recently published book by a former police chief, who culled from over three decades of law enforcement experience to offer his perspective on the issue.

Former Fitchburg and Gardner Police Chief Edward Cronin said he was inspired to pen “Just Policing: My Journey to Police Reform” after seeing the global unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, a Black civilian, at the hands of Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer.

“I, like many people, was taken back by all the pushback and violence that resulted from incidents related to the Black Lives Matter movement,” Cronin said. “I saw in this an opportunity to tell my story and offer how policing can be done differently and more effectively in the future.”

Cronin reached out to Dayna Kendall, who serves as the Restorative Justice Interventionist in the Ayer Shirley Regional School District, to co-author the book published in June.

He said it is “part memoir and a story of all my career experience and my views about police reform today, especially in light of all the controversy that’s been going on over the last two years.”

Cronin served as police chief in Fitchburg for five years, from 2002 to 2007, and in addition to his three years as chief in Gardner has nearly a decade of extensive international experience working with the U.S. Department of State.

One of seven siblings, he grew up in Fitchburg and graduated from the high school in 1971, where he has lived for most of his life — except when living overseas while working internationally. In total, his career of public service spans 35 years.

Cronin said his time in law enforcement in the city is an especially integral part of the detailed book — that according to the description — offers possibilities and solutions to fix the broken criminal justice system.

It is a story of the police empowering communities to overcome issues from deep systemic racism to international crime and corruption, and to do so in a way that has brought about tremendous healing and growth to all places and locations that he has worked.

“One direct example is told by how Fitchburg once had a murder rate higher than Boston and a minority dropout rate of over 40% at our high school, and what was done during that time to leverage long term sustainable change that through the efforts of many have resulted today in Fitchburg experiencing one murder last year and a dropout rate of 8% for minorities,” Cronin said. “I believe there is a great story of Fitchburg’s success that needs to be shared with other communities.”

Restorative Justice Interventionist in the Ayer Shirley Regional School District Dayna Kendall co-authored “Just Policing: My Journey to Police Reform” along with former Fitchburg police chief Edward Cronin. (COURTESY EDWARD CRONIN)

He said one aspect of the work they did in the city while he served as chief was to “stop doing things the same old way over and over again and getting failed results.”

“Enforcement was increased dramatically but there was no drop in crime,” he recalled. “It wasn’t until we began to build relationships between the police and the minority community did the trust evolve that led to the results we are seeing today.”

The book, which is available on Amazon and other platforms in paperback and ebook formats, has been well received in the greater community and beyond as well as among fellow law enforcement officials.

Cronin said the most common feedback he hears is “I could not put it down,” and a recent review written by former two-time Police Commissioner of the New York City Police Department and the former Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton, whom Cronin believes is “the most respected and accomplished law enforcement executive and officer in the country,” solidifies the impact the book is capable of making.

Bratton wrote he was reminded of a quote from the late NYPD First Deputy Commissioner John Timoney while reading the book: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it, and those who know policing know we don’t study history.”

“Ed Cronin clearly knows police history, both good and bad, the highs and lows and recognizes that it is consistently evolving and reforming; reform that he has consistently throughout his career sought to inform, improve and change. Now with his thoughtful new book he continues on that quest,” Bratton wrote.

“Those who care about policing will recognize the police professions importance to our Democratic society and form of government,” Bratton continued. “This book is a valuable addition and contribution to the efforts to always seek to improve it. Like myself, Ed Cronin is a Peelian, an admirer of Sir Robert Peel, whose Nine Principles of Policing provided the platform in 1829 upon which he built the London Metropolitan Police Service.”

Bratton also added those principles are “even more appropriate and applicable today in the 21st Century. This book is another plank in the platform and a valuable addition to the continuing effort to improve and reform policing in a democracy.”

Cronin said the biggest takeaway he hopes readers will gather from the book is that he “would like people to understand that the police are just a direct mirror of society, that police officers are honorable and trustworthy and can use their power to make positive change to a more inclusive and democratic society.”

Cronin and Kendall are already discussing plans for another book and will be holding a book signing from noon to 4 p.m., Saturday, at Barnes & Noble in Leominster.

For more information on their combined efforts visit justpolicing.org.

Burning for a second day, Ashby brush fire takes over 20 crews to extinguish

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ASHBY — Battling heat and flames, firefighters from more than 20 departments across Massachusetts and New Hampshire continued efforts to extinguish a brush fire at a composting site along Log Cabin Road for a second day on Thursday.

Although countless firefighters had worked since early Wednesday morning, Ashby Fire Chief Mark Bussell said the blaze continued in spite of their efforts. After arriving on scene Wednesday and assessing the extent of the fire, Bussell said the Ashby Fire Department signaled for mutual aid.

“We get here and the brush, mulch, everything was burning — and has continued to burn (Thursday) — so we made the call,” Bussell said.

As of Thursday, Bussell said the cause of the fire was unknown, but an investigation by local authorities and the State Fire Marshal’s Office was underway. He said it would be “at least another few days” until the investigation was complete.

Tanker trucks from Antrim and Rindge, N.H., as well as Paxton, Walpole, Winchester and a dozen other fire departments across Massachusetts, made the back-and-forth trek between Log Cabin Road and a pond behind the nearby Fitchburg Rod & Gun Club Thursday, transporting critical water to fight the blaze.

Bussel said, without them, they would “never get the fire out.”

“We’ve had them back and forth constantly since (Wednesday),” he said. “We need to have enough water up here that we can maintain a stream — we don’t want to start, stop, start, stop over and over again cause then we’ll never get the fire out.”

In a period of severe drought across the state, Bussell estimated his department and those rendering mutual aid used about 1.6 million gallons of water to battle the blaze on Wednesday. He expected similar water usage Thursday and even more by the time their work would be done, which could be as late as the weekend.

“We’ll probably have used upwards of three million gallons by the time we’re done here,” he said.

Fortunately, the fire was contained to the brush pile and damage to a nearby farm, located at 147 Log Cabin Road, and other nearby wooded areas was avoided. But, given the height of the pile — brush, mulch and other vegetation reach as high as 50 feet in some areas — Bussell said the fire could continue to burn for days.

“Fortunately the fire was pretty quick to contain within the pile itself, now we’re just trying to extinguish which can take a lot of time and water,” he said. “Based on what we’ve seen these last two days, I would expect it to burn into the weekend.”

The property at 147 Log Cabin Road has been the cause of friction between the town and the property’s neighbors. In 2019, more than 40 neighbors attended a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting to express concerns for their safety, pertaining to the drinking water. The meeting came after the owners Robert and Tony Ethier were issued a cease and desist order by then Building Commissioner Peter Niall.

According to neighbors, the owners were using the property as a dumping ground for parking lot snow, trash, concrete and compost.

However, at the meeting Jeremy Ethier contended that the site was only handling compost and the operation was following state regulations. Ethier also argued the property was a farm and not a private business, which would have been allowed by town zoning laws.

The Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the decision several days later. The town’s cease and desist order is still in place as of Thursday, according to Town Administrator Christine Lindberg.

Given the fire, Lindberg said the situation has “surpassed anything the town could do” and that the issue had “moved up to the state level.” She also said that representatives of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Massachusetts Environmental Police and other state agencies had visited the site since Wednesday.

“That’s why everybody has been here — MassDEP, MEMA, DCR — to see the results of what we’ve been trying to enforce and hold (Ethier) accountable for and to see that, despite being told to stop, (Ethier) has continued.”

While Lindberg would not comment on any future action by Ashby or the state, she said the town would continue to work with those state agencies “in order to determine the next steps.”

Lindberg and Bussell praised the men and women on the scene that helped the town fight the blaze. Both also recognized the Leominster Emergency Canteen — a volunteer arm of the city’s Office of Emergency Management — to keep firefighters hydrated and fed.

“I am extremely impressed and grateful for the mutual aid that these towns have provided,” Lindberg said.

“The men and women here, the towns and other departments that are here to help us, I can’t thank them enough,” Bussell said. “Their work has been invaluable and I honestly don’t know where we’d be without them.”

Truck driver escapes serious injury during rollover crash in Fitchburg

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FITCHBURG — The operator of a FedEx truck walked away from a rollover crash on Oak Hill Road with only minor injuries late Wednesday morning, according to authorities.

The truck struck a utility pole, as well as a fire hydrant, before coming to a rest on its side next to the Oak Hill Country Club, Fitchburg Deputy Fire Chief Anthony Marrama said hours after the crash.

Emergency crews were called to the scene at around 10:30 a.m., for reports of a single-vehicle wreck involving a truck that had flipped over in the 900 block of Oak Hill Road.

A FedEx truck was involved in a rollover accident in the vicinity of 995 Oak Hill Road, Fitchburg, around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. (David Bryce/Sentinel & Enterprise)
A FedEx truck was involved in a rollover accident in the vicinity of 995 Oak Hill Road, Fitchburg, around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. (David Bryce/Sentinel & Enterprise)

According to the emergency radio broadcast, the truck’s operator was already out of the vehicle before crews arrived on scene. Marrama said the driver suffered “some superficial wounds,” and refused medical transport.

“Our paramedics checked him out, and patched him up,” Marrama added.

Images of the crash scene show the truck came to a rest on its side on top of a rock wall that runs alongside the road. The photo shows the wires from the downed utility pole draped across the truck.

The status of the crash investigation was not immediately available.

FedEx truck involved in rollover accident on Oak Hill Road Wednesday morning

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FITCHBURG — A single vehicle rollover accident occurred around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning in the vicinity of 995 Oak Hill Road near the Oak Hill Country Club.

The lone occupant of the vehicle involved was driving a FedEx truck that rolled over on its side and snapped a telephone pole. EMS personnel evaluated the driver, however, it is unknown if the driver required transport to a nearby hospital.

For more, click HERE for the updated story.