11 Brookline police officers have been disciplined or suspended in two years.

 MA - Six Brookline police officers have been disciplined for violations of the department’s detail policy and insubordination, police and a union lawyer said.

One officer was suspended, and the rest were hit with lesser punishments, said Brookline police spokesman Lt. Philip Harrington. He didn’t offer specifics, declining to release the officers’ names or say how they allegedly ran afoul of department rules, but said there was no threat to public safety.
“It was based on detail hiring,” he said.

Bryan Decker, a lawyer for the Brookline Police Union, said the alleged violations happened in the past year and the punishments were handed down over the past two weeks.

“There were some internal allegations that some officers had violated the policies and procedures about details. There was no allegation of criminal action or anything that would rise to that level,” Decker said.

He said the one officer was suspended for insubordination that was unrelated to the detail violations.
Selectman Kenneth Goldstein said police Chief Daniel O’Leary had told the board about an ongoing internal affairs investigation.

“There was an access to the detail list,” he said. “There are some findings. We expect to learn more at the next meeting. Of course, I’m concerned. We want to know that everything is being run by the book.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/202211296_brookline_officers_disciplined/

Town of Brookline police discipline policy:
http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?searchword=police+discipline&ordering=&searchphrase=all&Itemid=1&option=com_search

Five Brookline police officers suspended in 2010.

Last year, Officer Edward Amendola was at police headquarters during his regular shift, filling out an overtime slip for an upcoming assignment.

That’s when the department’s dispatchers contacted Amendola and ordered him to respond to a reported burglar alarm in a building a few minutes away.

Amendola acknowledged the call, and later told a superior officer he had to move another cruiser in the parking lot to free up his own police car and leave for the scene. He said he turned back when another officer called and told him police already checked the building.

Except that Amendola never left the station, according to a police investigation, which found he was “not being truthful” about the incident when questioned.

Video surveillance showed Amendola’s cruiser never left the station, nor did he ever respond to the burglar alarm. Amendola later apologized to a police investigator for “not being forthcoming” about the incident.

“An officer failing to respond after acknowledging the call places the sole responding unit in a potentially dangerous situation,” according to a report from the department’s office of professional responsibility, which accused him of neglect of duty.

Amendola’s case is one of several incidents of questionable police behavior in the past year, according to police records released to the TAB.

Those records also show five officers and one civilian Police Department employee have served unpaid suspensions due to discipline issues since January, including one officer who was kicked off the job for 30 days.

Brookline Police officers made headlines earlier this year in two high-profile cases involving alleged misconduct.

In March, four officers were placed on administrative leave and faced criminal complaints in connection with a Beacon Street fight involving a stripper’s bodyguard from Lynn. All charges in that case were eventually dismissed.

In a separate incident, Officer Scott Seto, a 24-year veteran of the department, was placed on paid administrative leave in May after police said he groped a woman in her home while he was on duty. Seto now faces charges of indecent assault and battery, along with assault and battery.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/news/x383302562/Five-Brookline-police-officers-suspended-in-2010#axzz2DcnkzUPZ