Some Worcester residents and activists say the police department’s response to a recent car crash involving a Worcester city councilor underscores their longstanding concerns about a lack of police accountability and transparency.
City Councilor Kate Toomey struck a parked vehicle around midnight on Sept. 2, according to police reports. There were no injuries reported, and both cars were towed from the scene.
Officers who responded to the incident did not cite or charge Toomey in connection with the crash. According to body camera footage obtained by GBH News, the officers did not administer a sobriety test despite what some police oversight advocates say were signs she may have been impaired.
Toomey chairs the Worcester City Council’s standing committee on public safety, which handles matters involving the police department. She has long been a staunch supporter of the Worcester police, often voting against proposals to increase oversight of the department amid accusations of officer misconduct.
An attorney for Toomey said that she collided with an illegally parked car and that the crash was an accident. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Worcester police said the department opened an internal investigation into officers’ response to the crash on the same day of the incident. The review is meant to ensure “that no preferential treatment was provided and that all departmental policies were followed,” the spokesperson said.
On Tuesday, Toomey released a statement saying she was not impaired at the time of the crash. She said she will temporarily step down from the public safety standing committee and will recuse herself from all matters involving the police department while the internal investigation continues.
“I’m doing this out of an abundance of caution and to ensure that the work of our Committee and the integrity of the Worcester Police Department remain above reproach,” Toomey said.
News of the crash and the police department’s internal investigation comes less than a week after Worcester city councilors, including Toomey, voted against creating a civilian review board to oversee the Worcester police. Advocates had said the independent panel was necessary to ensure police accountability following a 2024 U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found officers used excessive force, disproportionately targeted Black and Latino people, and committed other “outrageous” misconduct.
In response to the crash, a group of dozens of residents and activists who back the civilian review board said the police department’s internal investigation is not enough to ensure that officers responded appropriately. The Civilian Review Board Coalition — which includes the Worcester NAACP and the city’s human rights commission — wants an independent investigation of the incident and the police department’s response.
The coalition wrote in a statement that the body camera footage indicates that Toomey may have been intoxicated at the time of the incident. Toomey told an officer she was on her way back from a restaurant. When the officer noted she sideswiped a car and asked what happened, Toomey responded that, “she had an issue.” She then told another officer she was driving down the street and “that’s all I remember.”
Toomey also spent several minutes trying to find her drivers’ license, at one point attempting to give officers another card before finding the license.
In its statement, the coalition of activists said officers violated police policy by not administering sobriety tests despite signs that she may have been impaired. The coalition also argued that Toomey tried to invoke her position as a city councilor when she asked officers to call the police chief and told them she was trying to “get a hold of Anthony Petrone,” a police sergeant and former police union leader who’s supported Toomey during her past reelection campaigns.
“This is about differential treatment,” said Ellen Shemitz, a member of the coalition. “I have no idea whether the city councilwoman was or was not inebriated. But I also don’t know why the police did not apparently investigate the matter as it would have with with a resident who didn’t share the same public visibility as the councilwoman does.”
Toomey’s attorney, Michael Wilcox, rejected claims she tried to take advantage of her position during the incident, noting that she never mentioned to officers that she was a city councilor. Wilcox also said police did not administer a sobriety test because “there was no evidence of alcohol use. There was no odor of alcohol.”
“The police do not administer field sobriety tests to everybody who’s stopped for a motor vehicle violation or for an accident,” Wilcox told GBH News. “I think that it’s appropriate for the police to conduct a review. I don’t think there’s anything that occurred on that evening that is suspicious or improper.”
Still, some residents and activists argued the Worcester Police Department should have been more transparent about the incident and its decision to open the internal investigation.
The coalition of advocates calling for police oversight said the police department only announced the investigation publicly after the Worcester Telegram & Gazette inquired about the crash nine days after the incident.
“This is evidence of a system with no external accountability,” the coalition said in a statement. “When police departments investigate themselves, they do it only after something forces their hand.”
