The Boston Police Department this week will announce disciplinary action against Capt. John Danilecki, who has been accused of using excessive force during an incident in 2019.
"There's a punishment coming, and it won't be a firing offense. ... There were no findings regarding [use of force] being sustained," Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said Monday on Boston Public Radio.
Dorchester resident David Nave and Danilecki have shared different recollections of what happened on March 30, 2019. Nave said he was speaking with a group of neighborhood kids when Danilecki approached, then forcefully grabbed him and pinned him on the ground. Danilecki said Nave was acting aggressive, so he put Nave on the ground for his own safety.
Nave reported the incident to internal affairs. Detectives also used surveillance footage from the scene during their investigation.
In April, The Globe reported it obtained internal affairs documents showing "detectives did ultimately side with Nave" and that he used force improperly.
However, Cox told Boston Public Radio on Monday that was not true. He said internal affairs had completed its investigation and ruled Danilecki did not violate the department's use of force guidelines. He said "probably some bad information was given out or said” to news outlets.
In a response to a question about the reporting, Cox said that he’s “going to apologize on behalf of the department for whatever way that this information got out there in the first place.”
He said he didn't know enough about the facts of the case to comment on The Globe's reporting sooner. GBH News reached out to The Globe for comment and they reaffirmed that the paper’s reporting is based on records obtained from the BPD and that they stand by their original reporting.
This realization comes soon after the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) released a database this year with 3,413 disciplinary records of more than 2,100 Massachusetts police officers.
According to the database, Danilecki received a one- to five-day suspension for violation of computer use in a February 2001 incident and the same punishment for neglect of duty in a November 2002 incident. Even so, Danilecki and 17 other officers who were internally investigated were recertified as officers in December 2022.
