Maine police academy proposes sweeping changes to expand oversight of officers

Maine police and corrections officers can currently sexually harass their colleagues, ridicule people based on their race or disabilities, and, so long as they aren’t committing a crime, engage in conduct that raises questions about their honesty and integrity, all without jeopardizing their license to serve in law enforcement.

But maybe not for long.

The Maine Criminal Justice Academy, the body that certifies Maine police and corrections officers, has proposed a new code of conduct that would significantly expand its authority to discipline officers for wrongdoing that falls short of a crime but is still considered unethical or unprofessional for a member of law enforcement.

The long-awaited proposal comes three years after the Maine Legislature passed a bill to expand the academy’s disciplinary powers, which are mostly limited to taking actions against an officer’s license for criminal conduct. If approved, the rules would strengthen state oversight of law enforcement officers and address gaps that police officials themselves have said allow for misconduct to go unnoticed or unpunished.

The legislation was introduced in response to a Bangor Daily News series that identified examples of Maine officers who kept their licenses for misconduct that wasn’t a crime but was still unethical, and could have lost them their badge in states with greater oversight. The reporting found that the academy had been powerless to sanction officers who made unwelcome sexual advances against colleagues, lied to stay out of trouble, and discriminated against inmates based on their race and intellectual disabilities. One officer lost his policing job twice over repeated domestic abuse allegations but still managed to stay certified .

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The sheriff fired him. Then the police chief fired him. Each time he kept his license as a cop.

The new code of conduct “fills a lot of gaps,” said Brian Pellerin, chief deputy for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and the outgoing chair of the academy’s board of trustees.

“It captures the things that we would see before the board that made us a little disgusted, and a lot frustrated, [but] really didn’t fall under our purview and authority,” Pellerin said.

Police largely supported the 2021 bill to broaden their overseer’s authority, which delegated the task of determining what new conduct should fall under the academy’s expanded purview to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy’s 17-member board of trustees, a body primarily composed of law enforcement officials.

That the group meets only six times a year is part of why the process took so long, Pellerin said.

In accordance with the state rulemaking process, the academy released a draft for the first time in mid-July to solicit comments from the public. The public comment period closed Aug. 11. The board must decide whether to adopt the rules within the next 120 days, according to state rulemaking guidelines .

The new standards would allow the academy’s board of trustees to discipline officers for a wider range of misbehavior, including the following:

— Harassing someone because of their race, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, age or familiar status. Harassment would include unwelcome sexual advances, comments, jokes based on someone’s protected class, as well as behavior that interferes with someone’s ability to perform their work duties by creating a hostile, offensive working environment.

— Making a misrepresentation or being untruthful in an attempt to obtain a certificate from the academy, or in connection with their official duties as a licensed officer, “including, but not limited to, falsifying written or verbal communications in official reports or records or in interactions with another person or organization when it is reasonable to expect that the information may be relied upon due to their position as a certificate holder or applicant.” The rule exempts officers from using misleading statements during interrogations in order to elicit information from criminal suspects.

— Disclosing confidential information they are only privy to because of their role as a law enforcement officer.

— Engaging in conduct while in uniform or on duty that “would significantly diminish the public’s confidence in or discredit” a certified officer, “or adversely impact the efficiency, professionalism, or integrity of the law enforcement profession.”

— Possessing a controlled substance in violation of federal law, including marijuana. (Marijuana is legal under Maine state law but not federal law. The proposed prohibition would not introduce any new limitations on Maine police, who are already supposed to avoid federally outlawed substances because they carry firearms, Pellerin said. )

— Failing to investigate and report misconduct of another licensed officer while serving as the chief of a law enforcement or corrections agency, as well as knowingly allowing a subordinate to to engage in conduct that is subject to disciplinary action.

When an allegation of misconduct is reported to the academy, a subcommittee of the board of trustees called the complaint review committee investigates it. The committee has several options it can recommend to the full board for approval if it determines a violation has taken place: revoke the officer’s certification to serve in law enforcement; enter into a consent agreement that places certain conditions on the officer’s license for a set period of time, such as requiring an officer convicted of drunk driving to undergo counseling; or issue the officer a letter of guidance.

Officers have the right to appeal discipline in court.

Academy officials had previously expressed hesitation about enforcing an ethical code of conduct, fearing that it might be too subjective or general. Even police departments often have policies requiring officers to abstain from “conduct unbecoming.”

However, Pellerin was not concerned about that in an interview Monday, in part because the board understands that some officers are bound to make mistakes that should not bar them from the profession. He called the proposed rules comprehensive but fair, and said there have been instances in the past when the board has reluctantly dismissed cases where an officer clearly violated the high ethical standard expected of law enforcement, but the conduct did not meet the criteria of a criminal offense.

“Nobody in law enforcement wants someone in law enforcement who shouldn’t be [there],” he said.

Cases of sexual harassment often fell into that category, Pellerin said. The most notorious case is likely that of former Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant , who resigned in late 2017 when news broke that he had sent explicit photos of himself in uniform to colleagues. Had he not resigned, it is unlikely that the board would have been able to discipline him, Pellerin said. He recalled another, lesser-known case where a police officer sent inappropriate sexual messages to a dispatcher.

“That is clearly conduct unbecoming in law enforcement, and we were kind of powerless,” he said.

The academy trustees already had the ability to take action against officers who falsify records because that is a crime, but the new rules would expand their ability to crack down on dishonesty. For example, the board stripped the license of the former Fryeberg police chief in 2021 for creating a fake police report to get out of a public meeting. Joshua Potvin had already been considered an unreliable witness in court for lying to a state trooper during a 2018 investigation.

David McCrea, a former Democratic state representative from Fort Fairfield who sponsored the legislation expanding the academy’s disciplinary authority, said in an interview Tuesday that he was pleased with the proposed rules, believing that greater oversight at the state level will result in more documentation of officers with histories of misconduct or liabilities. Police departments sometimes allow misbehaving officers to resign in lieu of termination, preventing a record of misconduct that future employers might otherwise find before deciding to hire them.

He viewed a stronger state licensing board as a way to hold accountable police departments as well as problematic officers.

The academy is “not going to let that happen on their watch,” McCrea said.