As Mayor Paul Coogan weighed four internal candidates for police chief of Fall River, Massachusetts, he said Kelly Furtado emerged as a popular choice among the department’s rank and file.
Furtado comes from a police family: her father, husband and son have all served as Fall River police officers. She had also worked alongside the mayor at the city’s high school as a school resource officer while Coogan was still a vice principal.
On Oct. 8, Coogan announced Furtado as his latest pick to lead the police department — his fifth police chief in just five years — at a news conference that emphasized her groundbreaking role as the first woman in Fall River’s history to hold the position. In a short speech, Furtado vowed to make officers feel more valued on the job.
“I want to foster collaboration and teamwork, something that’s been missing in recent years,” she said.
Furtado’s remarks, delivered to a room of a few reporters and close to 50 police officers who crowded into the press conference to signal their support, appeared to reference the outgoing chief, Paul Gauvin. The city’s police unions recently announced a vote of no confidence against Gauvin, who promptly reached an agreement with the mayor to step down.
In an interview, the mayor acknowledged that the votes prompted him to reconsider whether Gauvin belonged in the position long term.
“The key to this,” Coogan said, “is that you cannot have a department that’s not cooperating with the chief.”
The city’s police unions did not issue any public statements explaining their disapproval. Instead, Coogan said the unions privately showed him a press release they planned to share if he did not take action.
“The things that they highlighted or talked about were respect, lack of communication, honesty — personal characteristics that are very tough to define in a job evaluation,” Coogan said.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.
