The Canton Police Division, a outstanding focus of the continuing Karen Learn homicide trial, will quickly have a brand new chief, as its chief intends to retire on the finish of this fiscal yr.
Helena Rafferty, who took over the division in June 2022, is about to retire on June 30, city officers mentioned earlier this week. She grew to become chief months after the loss of life of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
In an announcement, Choose Board Chairman Michael Loughran known as Rafferty a “trailblazer” who has “earned the respect of her colleagues, town officials and residents alike,” for serving because the division’s first feminine chief.
Residents applauded at first of Tuesday’s Choose Board assembly, once they discovered about Rafferty’s determination to retire.
“Folks, calm down,” Loughran advised these attending. “It’s a business meeting, not a pep rally.”
Rafferty’s tenure as chief has been mired in turmoil because the division has handled sharp backlash for the way it dealt with investigations into the deaths of O’Keefe and resident Sandra Birchmore.
Rafferty succeeded Kenneth Berkowitz, who was the chief on the time of O’Keefe’s loss of life and the following investigation. Some on the town had known as for Rafferty to resign final yr.
Loughran said that the city will likely be appointing an “interim police chief to ensure a smooth transition,” and it intends to “engage a professional consulting firm to assist with a comprehensive, nationwide search for our next police chief.”
An impartial agency that carried out a months-long $198,000 audit of the division praised Rafferty’s “leadership style and found her approach and decision-making abilities to be effective.”
The agency, 5 Stones intelligence, Inc., reported that it “did not find any indication of conspiracies, coverups or corruption” within the audit, which it launched on the day that jury choice started in Learn’s second trial.
Learn is accused of backing her SUV into O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years and a 16-year Boston Police veteran, leaving him to die in a snowstorm the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
The dealing with of the crime scene by the native police in these essential early hours has been extensively criticized, with the Learn protection seizing on investigative and protocol failures that they argue level to their shopper being framed.
Rafferty, who earned $212,524.54 in complete pay in 2023, is listed as a witness for the prosecution and protection within the second trial. She didn’t testify within the first trial, which led to a hung jury final yr.
Rafferty, who joined the division in 1989, oversees roughly 50 staff within the division, together with 42 sworn officers, the 5 Stones audit states.
“Chief Rafferty, a 35-year veteran of the department and an FBI National Academy graduate, ascended through the department’s ranks to her current position,” the agency said in its report.
Final June, the Choose Board permitted a one-year contract, as a substitute of three, for Rafferty, with members emphasizing that the mud wanted to settle from the Learn case.
Rafferty discovered herself in scorching water after she crashed into and injured a Wrentham resident together with her SUV in February 2024. In a letter to the neighborhood weeks later, she apologized and said that her blood alcohol content material “read 0.0%.”
“This was an unfortunate accident,” Rafferty wrote. “Upon further reflection and considering the amount of attention that has been focused on Canton, I should have issued a statement sooner.”
