Embattled Springfield police officer Gregg Bigda will appear Thursday before Massachusetts’ law enforcement oversight board at a hearing in Boston.
The police watchdog board, the Peace Office Standards and Training (POST) Commission, took initial steps earlier this year to revoke Bigda’s policing license after Springfield Police Superintendent Cheryl C. Clapprood declined to vouch for his “good moral character” — a required sign-off for the license to be recertified.
Bigda in recent years was subject to a federal indictment on brutality charges involving his interrogation of a pair of Latino boys who stole an undercover police car in 2016. A jury acquitted Bigda of all charges in December 2021. But he has not been placed back on duty by Springfield police officials.
The POST Commission is a developing state board born out of a 2020 policing reform law, and charged with standardizing the training and certification of the thousands of cops employed in Massachusetts.
The board has the power to decertify officers, barring them from future law enforcement work in the commonwealth. It has exercised that authority a half-dozen times.
In his initial decision to decertify Bigda in May, POST Executive Director Enrique Zuniga cited evidence from the interrogation episode, as well as numerous citizen complaints against the officer. Bigda was cleared through internal investigations in virtually all of the cases.
Donald C. Keavany Jr., an attorney for Bigda, filed an appeal of Zuniga’s decision.
“Mr. Bigda and I were incredibly disappointed with the executive director’s May 31 determination,” Keavany said in June. “We look forward to presenting evidence in that proceeding to establish Mr. Bigda’s entitlement to recertification as a law enforcement officer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
Ahead of the hearing Thursday, the commission said little about the nature of the proceedings or what may be discussed.
A notice on the commission’s website listed Bigda as the “appellant,” suggesting the hearing may be the result of his appeal of Zuniga’s decertification decision.
Charles J. Hely, a retired judge, will preside over Thursday’s hearing.
The hearing also comes about two weeks after Bigda’s latest suspension by the Springfield Police, following his arrest on a drunken driving charge around the beginning of this month.
