Termination of Boston officer who sent pro-Trump Jan. 6 tweets vacated, commission rules

By Flint McColgan
Boston Herald

BOSTON — A Boston Police officer who was fired for sending pro-Trump tweets anonymously on Jan. 6, 2021 , had his termination vacated by the state civil service commission.

“The Commission’s decision finds the Appellant’s tweets to be protected speech and are not just cause for his termination,” a decision by the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission states.

But what exactly the decision allowing Officer Joseph Abrasciano ’s appeal of his termination means will be up to another body. The Commission in its report states that the “scope of the relief, if any, financial or otherwise” must be between the officer and the BPD or through “adjudication in another forum with authority to interpret and enforce the applicable provisions.”

The 49-page decision defended the tweets sent by Officer Abrasciano during the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” and subsequent riot in Washington D.C. on First Amendment grounds. But the commissioners took pains to say that their unanimous decision was not an endorsement of that speech.

“The decision is not to be construed as endorsing the substance of those misinformed opinions nor as condoning the underlying, unconscionable criminal acts committed by those who stormed the Capitol that day,” the decision issued Thursday states.

Abasciano is a former U.S. Marine who served at least two tours in Iraq first as active duty and then as a reservist five years into his Boston Police Department career.

A longtime BPD supervisor described Abasciano, who has been a member of Republican committees in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as “very conservative” but that he “never saw that the Appellant’s political views prevented him from performing any of his duties as a BPD police officer,” according to the decision.

“Basically, these tweets . . . are extremely, extremely passionate about politics. He is very emotional, but looking at these, I don’t see how, given my history, my experience, and the time I supervised and worked with Joe, I don’t see how this – I have never seen this impact his ability to do his job or how he treated anybody,” BPD Capt. Sean Martin told commissioners, as quoted in the report.

The case

Abasciano suffered an injury while on duty in July 2020 and began using his sick leave. That November, he was approved for continuous leave for two months beginning then and through Jan. 23, 2021 .

While on that leave, he went down with another off-duty officer to Washington D.C. to attend the “Stop the Steal” Donald Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021 . While there he tweeted very pro-Trump sentiments that could also be seen as possibly threatening to those who had opposed Trump’s ascension to a second term in some way.

“Today there will be only two parties in America, traitor and patriot,” went one of the tweets sent by his “@mailboxjoe” Twitter account. The social media platform is now called X.

Later in the day his tweets expressed dismay, including: “What I saw in [sic] today frankly made me weep for our once great nation. The Political Elitist Class has successfully turned Americans against each other. Patriots and Law Enforcement trying to do their jobs in a no win [sic] position. I fear this Treasonous election has killed the republic.”

Other tweets took aim at specific figures like then-Vice President Mike Pence : “I hope you never sleep well again @VP your Treasonous Act lead [sic] to the murder of an innocent girl and the death of America. You are not a Godly man.”

Neither Abasciano’s actions that day in person nor his X account details indicated that he was a police officer and certainly didn’t identify him as a Boston police officer, according to the report. The account was anonymous and was only identified to the BPD brass by a police union official who Abasciano was not on good terms with, the report states.

The BPD launched two investigations, one by the Anti-Corruption Division completed that May and the other by the Internal Affairs Division completed that November. Both concluded that Abasciano “had not engaged in any misconduct that violated the BPD’s Rules and Procedures.”

More than a year later, under new BPD leadership, Abasciano’s Internal Affairs file was reopened and under this “paper review,” investigators “reached a starkly different conclusion.”

IAD charged Abasciano — who has received about three dozen commendations and had no prior infractions on his record — with “conduct unbecoming” an officer and recommended his termination. Police Commissioner Michael Cox accepted this recommendation.

The Civil Service Commission concluded in its report that the two earlier investigations which cleared Abasciano of violations “were more objective, timely and thorough; were supported by a preponderance of the evidence; and deserve more weight than the less thorough December 2022 ‘paper review’ which relied on erroneous facts and conclusions that were not substantiated by credible evidence.”

“For all of the above reasons, the BPD’s Motion to Dismiss is denied. The appeal of Joseph Abasciano … is hereby allowed,” the report concludes. “The Appellant’s termination is vacated.”