Charges of racism erupted this week at the Tisbury police department, with the town's only African-American year-round officer saying he has been the subject of harassment, jokes and even an offens
Almost two years before he made the scathing comments about the Tisbury police which cost him his job, police chief John Cashin launched a similar broadside, aimed at his former colleagues on the Norwalk, Ct., police force
It was on July 26, 2007 and Mr. Cashin was almost 10 months into his tenure as Tisbury chief when he elected to speak to The Hour, a daily newspaper in his former town, damning the force there for insubordination, lack of discipline and immorality, and calling for a complete shake-up of the department.
An investigation is under way into claims by a Tisbury policewoman that she was sexually harassed by a fellow officer and then subjected to retaliatory action from the police chief and town administrator when she complained about it.
In a detailed complaint, filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) on April 28, Kelly R. Kershaw said she believed her alleged harasser, Sgt. Timothy Stobie, chief John Cashin and the town were trying to force her from her job.
Tisbury Police Ask Voters for Staff Help
Union Wants Two Additional Officers;Issue Will Appear as April
Article on Town Meeting Warrant
By JOSHUA SABATINI
An unprecedented move by the Tisbury police union will put the
debate over staffing of the town police force before the voters at town
meeting time in April.
Tisbury Police Department Size Debated
By JOSHUA SABATINI
At a Tisbury police labor management meeting Tuesday afternoon,
patrolmen said their own safety and that of the public is jeopardized by
having a department of only 11 men.
The union wants an increase in manpower. But selectmen have been
considering cutting back the department since more than a month ago,
when police chief John McCarthy asked the board's permission to
hire a patrolman to replace one who recently retired. Selectman Tristan
Israel questioned the need, and the debate was on.
"The Tisbury Police Department environment is dysfunctional,
at best, with continual tension between police officers and
management," declares a new report made public at the Feb. 27
meeting of the Tisbury board of selectmen. The 22-page report is the
product of a four-month study commissioned by selectmen and undertaken
by seasonal Island resident Robert Wasserman of the consulting firm
PSComm LLC.
Two young girls from New Jersey got their first exposure to overt racism this week when they returned from a morning walk into downtown Vineyard Haven and found a racial slur spray-painted in letters two feet tall in the street by the house their family was renting at Clough Lane and Pine street.
Tisbury police are investigating the vandalism that happened Wednesday — possibly in broad daylight — and police chief John McCarthy is looking into whether the incident should be considered a hate crime.
