Return with me now to the days of bluster, bloviating, braggadocio, and boasting when Thomas Hodgson, Sheriff of Bristol County MA, in attempting to cement a place in the heart of Donald J. Trump, if not for a spot in his administration after the first, and only, election, but, perhaps, one in the second term that was assumed to be automatic, played politics while claiming all he did was for the public good and others, not he, were the ones doing the politicking.
He volunteered county inmates to help build Trump’s wall, kept up secret correspondence with Stephen Miller reporting on anyone the White House may want to deal with as they were not toeing the Trump line, and went bravely to the Republican National Convention where he proudly did not wear a face mask or social distance. We know he turned in his church for holding to its firmly held religious belief of aiding the needy and helping the stranger. The church was kind to immigrants in a Christ-like way, and that could not be left to stand. The public and, most surprisingly the church itself only became aware of his reporting by the inclusion of emails in the response to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents and, although not the actual documents requested, were related tangentially to the meat of the request and, so, were included.
There is no way of knowing presently if this was the only reporting on his fellow county citizens he had been doing, especially as he had pledged to the White House through the person of Stephen Miller that he would continue to observe and report on anyone in the county who did not Trump the Immigrants in a county whose three largest cities, New Bedford, Fall, River, and Taunton, have considerable immigrant communities using his “Special Force” to do so.
When it came to the Covid 19 pandemic, again, to catch the eye of his idol, the Orange One, or increase his visibility if he had already been noticed, he did not veer from the president’s attitude toward the Covic-19 virus and the resulting pandemic, choosing the “Only I can Fix it” approach of ignoring sound advice in favor of claiming no cases only to reveal later there had been more than his claimed none, and creating such uncertainty in his beloved racist dungeon, his ICE detention facility, that legal and community groups petitioned, demonstrated, and demanded change, and informed the public that the Sheriff was making his North Dartmouth Jail campus a petri dish of covid which, because of the number of employees entering and exiting the facility each day had the strong possibility of being carriers of the virus.
He refused to even consider the proposed program of thinning the correctional department herd by releasing fully anyone whose time behind bars was almost up, whose crime was not so serious as to need more than a slap on the wrist, those who were in because they could not make bail or pay a fine, and ICE detainees collected by stretching the rules so that they were not only detaining someone they had arrested on a serious crime and was found to be here without proper papers after the apprehension and those who, to inflate the number and keep the ICE funds per detainee coming in were picked up on random raids like the old end of the month flurry of traffic tickets required in the past to meet quota and please superiors.
The District Attorneys of Suffolk, Middlesex, Northwestern, and Berkshire Counties, along with over 30 other prosecutors nationwide, were urging “the release of detainees who cannot afford cash bail and those who are vulnerable to infection because of age or health conditions.”
Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan worked with police departments on a plan where officers would make arrests only when there was no public safety alternative, and the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office worked with DA Ryan and consulting with an infectious disease specialist.
Northwestern County DA David Sullivan’s office and Norfolk County DA Michael Morrissey’s office worked with Franklin and Hampshire County Sheriffs’ Departments to review incarceration statuses.
According to Anthony Benedetti, chief counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel Services,
“Our hope is that every prosecutor across the state — even though they didn’t sign this letter — will take decisive actions to limit the number of cases they bring and keep people out of jail as this unprecedented public health crisis continues to unfold.”
Hodsgon’s involvement in this program was merely to announce,
“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described. We continue to monitor the Corona virus situation; it is fluid and changing daily.”
From here he called all his own shots often making claims that everything was under control, denying the existence of the virus in his facilities when numbers would later show he was not being honest with the public.
Rather than do the responsible thing, he responded to every complaint, even official ones that revealed deficiencies, as the work of Social Justice, anti-police, ant-Trump radicals. His insistence that any criticism was anti-Trump shows where his concern was, and it was neither his inmates, employees, or the people of the county.
Eventually the detainees in the Ice Facility reacted to his not being truthful with them and acting in such ways that everything he did could be seen as a threat, and on May 1, 2020, when after a verbal altercation followed by an hour of quiet the sheriff returned with deputies in riot gear and with unmuzzled dogs entering the facility with the detainees reacting like anyone would who found their quiet interrupted with law enforcement in riot gear using flash grenades, tear gas, and unmuzzled biting dogs while being yelled at in English by a sheriff who, in spit of knowing the detainees might not be proficient in English, never bothered to ensure there was a translator present anytime there was a need to address the detainee singly or as a group.
In spite of his claiming he welcomed an investigation provided he could choose the investigators and that videos would show that those “Criminal Illegal Aliens” were monsters, a seven month investigation that included the tapes he said would show how by the book he had been in spite of being attacked by the unarmed detainees, the investigation actually found,
“The Bristol County Sheriff Office’s calculated use of force included the use of a variety of less-lethal but dangerous weapons— including a flash bang grenade, pepper-ball launchers, pepper spray canisters, anti-riot shields, and canines—against detainees who had exhibited calm and nonviolent behavior for at least an hour before this operation. The BCSO deployed these weapons both indiscriminately upon entry and also specifically against particular detainees who were not combative, assaultive, or otherwise actively resisting staff. Informing our conclusion that the BCSO’s use of force was excessive.”
“The BCSO violated the civil rights of the detainees …… by using excessive force against the ICE B detainees and by acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious injury or harm to the detainees and their health.”
Because of what was found, this past spring Sheriff Hodsgon’s ICE contract was cancelled by the Biden administration because, as DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas clearly explained,
“We will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention. We have an obligation to make lasting improvements to our civil immigration detention system. This marks an important first step to realizing that goal. DHS detention facilities and the treatment of individuals in those facilities will be held to our health and safety standards. Where we discover they fall short, we will continue to take action So , every guy wants to have cialis 5mg cheap an instantaneous and quick remedy for such an issue , so that he can avoid other problems to his health and is making him so frustrated and stressed out over such issues. Without our health we’ve got nothing, and nothing makes a man feel astonishing like resembling a decent, costly architect fragrance, so why not simply get viagra overnight ahead and treat yourself and feel breathtaking? Regardless of whether you’re hoping to purchase rebate fragrances online for yourself or to gift your friends or relatives, you can easily buy it from this online store. The safety measures are the crucial and important point which should be taken into consideration. https://pdxcommercial.com/property/page/5/?paged-property-main-loop=5 levitra price But do you know, not all men are able to have hard and longer erection to get these sexual goals of their relationship. best price levitra as we are doing today.”
All that he had been denying was shown to be reality, and what he had claimed as success was shown to be an utter failure.
To Hodgson, though, he was merely, once again, the victim of people who do not like Trump.
“It’s nothing but a political hit job orchestrated by Sec. Mayorkas, the Biden administration and other anti-law enforcement groups to punish outspoken critics and advance their partisan agenda to score political points. This decision puts the people of Bristol County, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America at greater risk of being victimized by criminal illegal aliens.”
However, after a months’ long investigation it was determined that if there is any politicking going on it is the sheriff who refuses to do the job to which the people of Bristol County elected him.
Hodgson had not only rejected the results of the investigation he initially declared he supported saying that he will take any of the AG’s recommendations about as seriously as trash “halfway down the sewer pipe. That’s about how much value I put into the attorney general’s recommendations,” but stated clearly that he would defy the state’s highest lawyer and law enforcement official, trumpeting, “How dare she say she expects me to follow them.”
His obvious refusal to follow the recommendations and his having so strongly and publicly announced his refusal to do and then showing total disdain for the Attorney General his actual boss, was a clear indication that nothing was going to change and, so, it was not hate of Trump and law enforcement, but his expressed intent to make no changes.
He was found guilty of violating people’s civil rights, creating a hostile environment which he attempted to control by excessive force, and endangering the health and safety of those in his facilities both inmates and employees.
He is not contrite, contrition being something that usually follows a conviction for or a finding of wrong in order to set things right. Even in his claim that the investigation should be expunged on some minor claimed technicality, he has yet to dispute the actual findings. Yet, unlike social expectations and something upon which the legal system depends when judging the rehabilitation of a miscreant, he has shown no remorse, just more, now obviously empty, bluster.
Any insistence on innocence would be similar to all his inmates who have in their own cases claimed the same thing
He had become too dangerous to be in charge of a class of people his hate of whom he had made very clear and very often.
What does the barking dog do when it is finally restrained?
It puts it tail between its legs, slinks forward, and does whatever it takes to turn discipline into a reason for a treat.
Whereas the sheriff had been a constant presence in the media, especially the local newspaper, he has been oddly quiet since he lost the ICE detention center.
He needs and has perhaps found a way to erase from people’s minds his previous crimes by replacing the past with a desperate move to distract.
Massachusetts has been considering a program that uses trained dogs to sniff out Covid 19 which can be detected on human breath, and, of course, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County Ma, Trump worshipper and Covid denier announced his sheriff department would pilot the coronavirus-detection K-9 team program.
“Bristol County and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have come so far since the pandemic started last year. Today, festivals are happening, restaurants are full and concert venues are packed. We’ve made so much progress, and our new COVID-19 detection program is one way the people of Bristol County can stay ahead of the curve.”
His announcement was rather myopic as the distance we have come was accomplished in spite of him and after a “prison riot” and the closing of his Covid 19, S&M Ice detention center.
He loves throwing out the phrase about the safety of the people of Bristol County as if those words completely cancel the dangers to the county he introduced in his facilities by having turned his facilities into the county’s Covid petri-dish while lying to those very county people, and creating such animosity between those in the jail and those who mistreat them there that inmates go out into the community with a disdain for law and order and honor the sheriff by gaining him the crown for the highest number of people returning to jail after release.
While previously rejecting the science in favor of politics and self-aggrandizement, the sheriff is now involved in the pilot program that is, according to Sheriff Capt. Paul Douglas of the Bristol County Sheriff Offic,
“all science. This program was developed by professors, doctors and scientists at FIU, and we couldn’t be more proud or excited to execute it here in Bristol County.”
What child hasn’t overdone subsequent chores, even inventing new ones, to impress those whom they offended in such a way, they might forget the offense.
He may try to rewrite history, but it has been recorded and can still be recalled.
Obviously, the people he labelled as ant-law enforcement, anti-American, anti-Trump radical social justice zealots had been correct. I mean the guy is now dancing.
