Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson held a press conference to condemn the Massachusetts Attorney General’s report on the investigation of the May 1 incident at the ICE detention center on the campus of the Bristol County House of Corrections, which found the sheriff had violated the ICE detainees’ civil rights and the recommendation it contained.

He made it very clear that he was displeased.  

He made it clear his principles are only as deep as the shallowest expedience.

Calling the report baseless and politically motivated, using his having been the honorary chair of the state’s Trump reelection campaign as the basis for claiming any negative report or action by the Democrat AG regarding him on any given questionable activity of his is only because of that, and, so, all his actions should be given a free pass, he announced that he would take any of Attorney General Maura Healey’s recommendations about as seriously as trash “halfway down the sewer pipe,” adding,

“That’s about how much value I put into the attorney general’s recommendations. How dare she say she expects me to follow them.”

I would think that as the state’s Attorney General, Healey would have some say in things related to county jails and the sheriffs who run them, and to ensure they do not break the law by commission or omission as the AG position was constitutionally established to act as an advocate and resource for the Commonwealth and its residents in many areas, including combating fraud and corruption, protecting consumers, protecting civil rights, and maintaining economic competition as the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the state. 

The State Constitution is the law of the state.

So, the AG might have a basis for daring to do her job.

From his many statements about criminals, it is clear this sheriff is serious about people needing to follow the law and for people to respect and allow law enforcement to its job, like the state’s chief law enforcement officer had done with the report that took months to investigate.

When the Democratic governor objected to his implementing a program for gathering undocumented people that would involve profiling, the sheriff had declared in a letter to him,

“I hope you understand that as the duly elected Sheriff of Bristol County I took an oath to protect the citizens of my county and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this Commonwealth.”

He must, therefore, know that the AG is within her rights to do her job.

His response, though, is to stamp his feet and grouse, “No.”

His refusal to even consider the recommendation while issuing a combative blanket refusal is a fine example to the inmates in his facilities, the youth at a crossroads of their lives with some only one nudge away from a life of crime, and those who are presently questioning policing nation-wide, and this sheriff’s often politically rooted actions locally, and are protesting the real or perceived through action instances that demonstrate that while law enforcement will do what it considers necessary to keep the citizenry lawful, actions that in some cases are a bit extreme, it considers itself to be above the law and whose actions should be accepted without Question.

While people rightly or wrongly see law enforcement as out of control and dismissive of the people’s civil rights, and demand “defunding” and the removal of police protections that often shield the bad apples, we have the county sheriff telling the world, he refuses to follow the recommendation of the chief law enforcement officer of the state in which he is a county sheriff.

Citizens must follow the rules and procedure, even if they object. They must respect authority or there will be chaos. But, this sheriff has no problem announcing publicly that he would take any of Healey’s recommendations about as seriously as trash “halfway down the sewer pipe,” while demanding “How dare she say she expects me to follow them.”

Isn’t that what a dedicated sheriff who took an oath “to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this Commonwealth” is supposed to do?

Follow his superior’s recommendations?

I came across what I believe says much about the sheriff’s attitude toward those in his ICE detention facility and why he is petulantly refusing to follow the recommendations for improvements beneficial to the detainees and the staff, and his belief that others, unlike himself, must follow the law and respect authority.

It stems from how a group of people are viewed.

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Many immigrants, legally here or otherwise, tend to live quietly in their communities with most, having come to the United States for the opportunities a job can open up, actually having jobs. The proof of this is in the number of raids that ICE conducts at job sites. They continually raid factories, farms, and food processing plants. Those are employed people with taxes deducted from their pay none of which they will get back.

In Massachusetts, to avoid deportation, certain immigrants must report to an office located away from the major cities requiring transportation other than trains and busses to get to it which has made it necessary for groups of volunteers to form in various communities to supply rides when needed.

Lack of mobility often prevents immigrants from moving away from where they landed, and this limits the opportunities for work some distance from home.

And, when it comes to health, the lack of transportation to a doctor or hospital results in medical care at the last minute that costs considerably more than the prevention would have.

For those and other reasons a state bill was proposed that would allow that those undocumented residence of the state who met certain requirements could get a driver’s license. After all, this is a state with a law that states,

“All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”

The supporters of the bill saw how this would benefit not only those immigrants within the general community but the general community itself as the increased ability to get to work would come with the collateral benefit that being able to get to work the number of unemployed people would be reduced which, in turn, would reduce the loitering and attempting to keep busy activities, those idle hands are the devil’s workshop moments, that are seen as threatening or the cause of crime.

It would be a positive thing.

However, ignoring these benefits and that this was about good people, many of whom wanted to work and get to their legally required appointments with Immigration, Thomas Hodgson, the sheriff of Bristol County in Massachusetts, went to an extreme reason to oppose the bill.

He objected because, after listing 4 drug dealers who had false IDs and fake licenses and, apparently, represented the 60,000 undocumented immigrants who came to Massachusetts over a 10-year span who would get a license, and after listing his own curriculum vitae, he stated,

“And let me be perfectly clear on this next point: Passing these bills will make it even easier for criminal illegal aliens to evade law enforcement and victimize law-abiding U.S. citizens and Massachusetts residents.

Making illegal immigrants eligible for official Massachusetts driver’s licenses is not only wrong. but reckless. It will have a negative effect on the public safety of the people of the Commonwealth.”

True to form, he attempted to implant a subliminal bias against immigrants by using his often generally applied term “Criminal Illegal Aliens” and making overly broad claims lacking any supportive facts when claiming the people with the licenses would “have a negative effect on the public safety of the people of the Commonwealth.”

It would also appear that based on studies and statistics and not on its just sounding good, the sheriff knows with certainty that unless they had a license, real or fake, the drug dealers he had referred to would have never gotten in a car and driven it.

His major in concern in this case was that,

“These illegal immigrants have already chosen to disrespect and disobey our laws by coming to and remaining in the United States unlawfully. Why are we rewarding law-breakers?”

Not specifying if the law breakers were those here without documentation, which would mean their “crime” is only a civil misdemeanor, or those who committed a serious crime, he went on to describe what he had just referred to as “these illegal immigrants” dropping the word “criminal” which broadened the application to all “illegal” immigrants who he then claimed

“allowed drugs to pour into our neighborhoods, transnational gangs to grow stronger, human and sex traffickers to victimize children and young women, and sadly, the loss of American lives at the hands of criminal illegal immigrants here in Massachusetts and across the country.”

And for this none should have a license.

Imagine being a member of a community whose total population is considered no better than the worst person in it.

All the while he has a federal contract that supplies him with people from his most hated group, and their wellbeing is dependent on a man who spouts platitudes about lawfulness while, when it comes to the attorney general, prefers to act like those he loathes and has “chosen to disrespect and disobey our laws.”

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