When Paul Gauvin was an internal affairs investigator with the Fall River Police Department, his efforts to discipline officers for things like steroid abuse and excessive force were sometimes thwarted by station politics and powerful protections in union contracts.
So when Gauvin was promoted to chief of the Massachusetts city in December 2021, he said he tried to overhaul what police accountability looked like in Fall River.
At the time, Fall River had police officers on the force with long records of excessive force complaints. Two fatal police shootings were being scrutinized in court. And an officer accused of giving drugs to informants was found with drugs in his desk that he never logged as evidence.
Gauvin responded with a series of reforms: he conducted an audit of the station’s drug vault, negotiated with the city’s police unions to get officers wearing body cameras, and encouraged his internal affairs investigators to start documenting even relatively minor forms of misconduct, which he shared with the newly created police oversight agency in Massachusetts, the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission.
“Those things make police officers paranoid sometimes,” Gauvin said in an interview last week about his decision to step down as chief.
Gauvin said he had also butted heads with union leaders about chain of command protocols and the pay rate for police details. He described himself as a hard negotiator who wasn’t afraid to go up against powerful union leaders.
Gauvin said he was aware his relationship with the police unions was growing tense. But he said he was surprised when the unions announced on Aug. 31 that a majority of police officers had cast a vote declaring they had no confidence in his leadership. He said the union had no pending complaints against him, and there were no ongoing investigations of his conduct.
Neither the Fall River Police Association, which represents patrolmen, nor the Fall River Police Superior Officers Association responded to interview requests.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.
