A veteran police officer in a small Massachusetts town was fired last year after two internal investigations indicated he sexually harassed high school and college students, as well as educators, while working as a school resource officer.
The Groton Police Department dismissed Officer Omar Connor after the investigations pointed to a pattern of “overt sexual harassment,” describing Connor using lewd language with teachers and students and making sexual advances on a high school girl in the school building.
Before December, he had spent the last 12 years with the Groton police, serving since 2018 as the school resource officer assigned to Groton-Dunstable Regional High School, according to investigative reports prepared by Groton Deputy Police Chief Rachael Bielecki.
One girl who knew Connor said he approached her at the high school and propositioned her to come to his house for sex while his family was out of town, according to the first report. In the second, another young woman accused Connor of four years of sexual harassment beginning when she was in college and interviewed him for a school project.
Both investigative reports, obtained by MassLive through a public records request, sustained complaints of sexual harassment against Connor, along with a litany of other departmental policy violations.
Connor denied the accusations in interviews during the investigations.
Joseph P. Kittredge, a police union attorney representing Connor, refuted the reports and questioned their accuracy. He said Connor, who is contesting his firing, “had an exemplary record in Groton and to be treated as he has been by the town has been unfair.”
An independent arbitrator is expected to review the case in May, Kittredge said during a phone interview with MassLive.
“It’s really the first impartial hearing he’s going to receive,” Kittredge said. “We’re blessed with the opportunity for due process.”
The Groton Police Department declined to comment.
High schoolers claim harassment by longtime officer
Connor’s law enforcement career spanned 23 years and multiple police departments. Before arriving in Groton, a town of 11,000 just northwest of Interstate 495 near the New Hampshire border, he served as an officer in the Bay State towns of Littleton, Ashburnham and Lunenburg, according to the investigative reports.
On Sept. 1 of last year, according to the first report, Groton officials placed Connor on leave after two young women who had recently graduated high school accused him of soliciting them for sex while they were students.
One of the women said Connor approached her in the hallway at the high school, noted that his “wife and kids are away” and asked if she wanted to come to his house to have sex. The woman recalled Connor’s crude comments about her appearance and said it was not the first time the officer had spoken to her inappropriately.
The second woman said Connor once visited a restaurant where she worked, where he “hit on her” and made sexual comments. The girl believed Connor did not recognize her until she mentioned their connection.
Connor denied their accounts in an interview with police officials.
The reports painted a picture of Connor as a charismatic, chatty and casual adult whom some students “flocked” to in the school building.
High school students affectionately called Connor “Officer O,” the Groton Police noted in a 2022 Facebook post.
Groton Police Officer Omar Connor, pictured in a photo posted to the Groton Police Department Facebook page.Groton Police Department
But conversations with school staff during the investigation also indicated Connor used language and made jokes that were “sometimes shocking for a school setting,” according to the first report. These included comments toward female staff members about their attractiveness, some sexual references and rampant profanity.
Through his role as a police officer assigned to the high school, Connor also served as a liaison to two local private schools, primarily Lawrence Academy, a college preparatory school.
Some staff there grew concerned that Connor spent unnecessarily long parts of his workday at Lawrence Academy, portions of the first report said.
Multiple people interviewed in the report speculated that Connor was carrying on a sexual relationship with a woman who worked at the school. Both Connor and the woman denied that was the case, though the report questioned her truthfulness.
Reached by phone, a spokesperson for Lawrence Academy referred questions to the Groton Police Department and declined further comment.
Additional allegations emerge
In early November, just as the first investigation was winding down, Groton Police Chief Michael Luth received a new complaint against Connor, prompting a second inquiry. A woman learned Connor was under internal investigation for sexual harassment and reported that she, too, had been harassed, including while Connor was on duty.
The woman had interviewed Connor for a college project in 2019. Afterward, she said, he made “sexually suggestive” comments and physical advances that made her uncomfortable, according to the report.
Connor began to text the woman frequently. She said she initially had mixed feelings about his interest in her but eventually grew more uneasy with his overtures.
Despite telling Connor she was uninterested, the woman said he continued to make sexual comments to her, by text and in person when they crossed paths, the report said.
A presence in the Groton community
Facebook posts, including some from the Groton Police Department, show Connor’s involvement in a range of community programs and events, from a youth cadet camp to self-defense classes.
Outside of his role with the Groton police, Connor instructed in the Fitchburg State University Police Program, a five-year program through which students receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice, as well as the training certification required to become a municipal police officer.
Alexandra Wysocki, who began as the program director this year, said some instructors are full-time police officers. She directed any questions on Connor to the Municipal Police Training Committee, the state agency that runs the local police academies.
In 2010, while working for the Lunenburg Police Department, in northeast Worcester County, Connor was lauded after he sustained a serious neck injury while apprehending a suspect.
According to reports at the time by the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, the suspect leaped from a 12-foot wall just as Connor grabbed hold of him, pulling them both to the ground.
Connor fell face-first and broke two vertebrae, according to the Lowell Sun. He returned to work the following year and in 2012 transferred from the Lunenburg police to Groton.
Since his firing in December, Connor’s certification to work in law enforcement has been suspended by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, the agency charged with regulating the state’s police officers and departments.
The arbitrator hearing Connor’s case may not rule for several months. Regardless of the outcome, the nine-member POST Commission, which includes three police representatives, could still vote to revoke Connor’s certification.
That move would bar Connor from future police work in Massachusetts and land him on a national registry of decertified police officers, imperiling his future in the field. Since last spring, the commission has decertified 11 officers.
