Read\u2019s LA lawyers filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department, alleging \u201ca culture of bias and corruption\u201d <\/p>\n
The\u00a0civil lawsuit filed by Karen Read against Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police revealed a long history of disturbing string of texts between former police officers\u00a0Michael Proctor and his friend Sean Goode that included shocking racial slurs, sexist comments and other offensive material.<\/p>\n
Read\u2019s attorneys, among them Los Angeles defense lawyer Alan Jackson, filed the 87-page suit Thursday morning against the\u00a0Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department, alleging \u201ca culture of bias and corruption\u201d after she was acquitted of murder in the death of her Boston cop boyfriend John O\u2019Keefe. The lawsuit calls Proctor and Goode \u201cvirulent bigots\u201d with \u201cunrepentant hatred for women, Black Americans, Asian Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Arabs and gay people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ugly text exchanges \u2013 which led the Massachusetts State Police to fire Michael Proctor in 2025 \u2013 are included in the suit. Canton Police Sergeant Sean Goode resigned from his department a day before the lawsuit was filed. <\/p>\n
In Read\u2019s first trial, which ended in a hung jury, Goode, an 18-year veteran of the Canton Police Department, testified that he\u2019d been working as a patrol supervisor the night O\u2019Keefe died. He was on the list as a possible witness for Read\u2019s second trial, but was not called. She was acquitted of murder by a jury that called the investigation into O\u2019Keefe\u2019s death problematic.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael Proctor and Sean Goode did not slip through the cracks; they are emblematic of the failure to responsibly exercise the trust and faith the public puts in these institutions,\u201d Read\u2019s attorneys wrote. \u201cProctor and Goode were unfit for positions of public trust and yet they were handed badges, promotions, and ultimately control of homicide investigations despite harboring deep-seated and abhorrent anti-woman, racist, antisemitic, and homophobic ideologies for more than a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the texts cited in the suit, Goode, the Canton Sergeant who testified in Read\u2019s trial, allegedly called Boston Mayor Michelle Wu \u201ca little cunt,\u201d the same word Proctor used to describe Read after her arrest on murder charges that led to his removal from the MSP. Goode is also accused of writing that the owner of the NFL\u2019s New England Patriots \u201ca terribly cunty Jew.\u201d Goode and Proctor are also accused of using racial slurs with reckless abandon.<\/p>\n
In one text about a multi-vehicle accident, Goode received a text message, allegedly written by Proctor, that read: \u201cActually, take your time, I saw a [n\u2014-r] was involved, so I wouldn\u2019t rush if you\u2019re working. Let them die,\u201d Proctor allegedly wrote, the complaint stated. In another message, Read\u2019s attorneys said Proctor wrote to Goode: \u201cIt should be \u2018punch a [n\u2014-r] day\u2019 in canton today out of retribution. Any shine u see blast it in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Proctor allegedly wrote in another message, \u201cAmerica sucks \u2026. Hitler was really on to something then the fucking US has to step in and ruin it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Karen Read\u2019s civil suit filed Thursday includes shocking text strings allegedly shared between the investigators who arrested her for her boyfriend\u2019s murder Credit: Civil Suit Filed in Bristol Superior Court, MA by Karen Read\u2019s attorneys<\/p>\n
Read\u2019s lawyers told a Bristol County judge they are requesting a jury trial for the lawsuit. They are seeking damages in an amount to be calculated at trial. <\/p>\n
The MSP and Canton Police Department are at the center of another scandal involving the murder of pregnant teacher\u2019s aide Sandra Birchmore. Investigators from those departments called her death a suicide, when, in fact, federal prosecutors now say, she was murdered by one of their own, Stoughton Police Detective Matthew Farwell, in 2021. Farwell was investigated by fellow cops in Norfolk County, but never charged until the FBI stepped in to examine the case.<\/p>\n
Farwell was arrested in August 2024, and has been held without bail in a federal cell awaiting trial for killing Birchmore and her unborn baby, a son. A judge recently called the evidence gathered by the FBI, which had been overlooked by the state, \u201coverwhelming.\u201d Last month, Los Angeles was in a Boston federal courtroom<\/a> for a Farwell hearing when a federal prosecutor called the Birchmore investigation, by the same unit that prosecuted Read, \u201cproblematic.\u201d His trial is scheduled to begin in October. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read\u2019s LA lawyers filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department, alleging \u201ca culture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[31195,3629,1055,142230,142231,142232,48,52,51,1846,47,50,49,17085,142233,3690,142234],"class_list":["post-346882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alan-jackson","tag-antisemitism","tag-fbi","tag-homophobic","tag-john-okeefe","tag-karen-read","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-massachusetts","tag-matthew-farwell","tag-racism","tag-sandra-birchmore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}