Investigation: Digging into the Tenure of Greenfield’s New Top Cop

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When Virginia “Ginny” Desorgher won Greenfield’s mayoral election in a landslide in November, she said at her victory party on election night that she had “a little cleaning up to do” — a reference she seemed to aim at the city’s police department, which had been embattled by internal strife and poor community relations.

On Tuesday, Desorgher announced her latest bit of housekeeping: Todd Dodge, the department’s acting chief since the resignation of Robert Haigh in February, will continue in that position permanently.

For Desorgher, Dodge’s appointment in February marked a “seismic change” — the beginning of “a period of healing and stability,” she told the City Council at the time. Desorgher had run for office on a reform platform. That included overhauling the police department, which had faced intense scrutiny after a Black officer in the department, Patrick Buchanan, successfully sued the city and Haigh for racial discrimination in 2022. Dodge had previously joined Buchanan’s discrimination lawsuit and, as the president of the police supervisors’ union, defended Buchanan on the job. Former mayor Roxann Wedegartner, meanwhile, had reinstated Haigh after a jury found him guilty of discrimination. 

Since February, Dodge, with the mayor’s support, has overseen new initiatives in the department: the use of $12,350 in federal COVID-relief funds to open a new downtown police substation, for example, and the creation of a police “community liaison” position to be staffed by retired police officer Maria Burge. And some city leaders have had high praise for those efforts. At a City Council meeting last month, local business owner and At-large Councilor Wahab Minhas thanked Dodge “on behalf of a bunch of businesses on Main Street” for the department’s increased presence there. Minhas, who on the campaign trail called for more police accountability, said families feel more safe to be downtown now.

“You guys are starting to clean up Main Street,” he said. “The drug dealing has gone down significantly, even in the last couple weeks. And individuals who would be engaged in such behavior have been put away.”

But city leaders and activists who have organized to challenge police power in Greenfield have questioned Dodge’s record and how much his appointment really changes. In interviews with The Shoestring before Desorgher announcement Tuesday, some of them urged her to conduct an open, transparent search for a new chief. Others criticized Dodge and Desorgher’s use of COVID-relief money to increase policing downtown. They said the mayor has ignored a long list of internal investigations Dodge has faced during his tenure. Documents The Shoestring has obtained show that those include complaints accusing Dodge of demeaning behavior toward women, condoning other officers’ bigoted behavior, and dangerous actions on the job — all allegations that he denies.

Molly Merrett is an organizer with the progressive group Greenfield People’s Budget, which has focused on issues like transparency and accountability in city government. She appreciates that Desorgher “stood up” to Haigh and has established open communication with community activists. But she said the new substation is simply “criminalizing people who are experiencing poverty, substance use, houselessness,” and wants to see the city move toward alternatives to policing. 

“I understand that people breathed a sigh of relief when Haigh departed,” said Jon Magee, another Greenfield People’s Budget member. “I think all of those same people need to take a serious look at policing, and what it is, and the kind of people who become police before they feel like we’ve turned a corner.”

In a phone interview with The Shoestring, Dodge defended his record, noting that the department found no wrongdoing in nearly all of the internal cases against him. He said it’s good when a department thoroughly investigates any allegations against its own officers. 

“I was promoted up through the ranks because I think those who actually knew me knew I had the best of intentions,” he told The Shoestring.

Desorgher, through her spokesperson, declined multiple interview requests for this article. In a statement, she said she wouldn’t comment on any personnel issues involving Dodge. She applauded the “tremendous strides” the police department has made under his leadership, including the new substation and the establishment of a Community Impact Unit operating downtown. She also praised the department for “diversifying hiring practices to help create a police force that reflects our community.” 

“I thought extremely carefully about how this decision impacts our city,” Desorgher said in a press release Tuesday announcing Dodge’s appointment. “Ultimately, I believe Dodge’s terrific progress to date and decades of experience in Greenfield provides strong stability for the police department as they continue accomplishing fantastic new initiatives. ”

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Back in 2011, three Greenfield police officers were in trouble over what they described as “Team Awesome.” 

Chris Rowell, Rich Logan, and Chad Sumner faced an internal investigation over a website they reportedly had created with that name. The department’s investigation alleged they had even created Team Awesome patches for themselves, and that department superiors discovered phrases on their website and Facebook like “it’s easy as shooting kids in a ball pit” and “the last thing we want to do is hurt you, but it is still on the list.” 

“There are several other photos making fun or light of obese people men and women alike,” the department’s internal investigation said. “There are photos that make fun of gay people … There are sexist photos, and photos that make fun of adults and children with mental handicaps.”

According to the internal investigation, Logan and Sumner said that Dodge had looked at the website to make sure it didn’t violate department policies.

Both then and now, Dodge denied ever seeing the bigoted content on the website. If he had, he said he would have disciplined the officers. “I didn’t know the depths of that investigation,” he told The Shoestring. “The only thing I knew is that they had patches on their uniform.” Nevertheless, superiors issued Dodge a verbal warning over the incident.

Another internal investigation earned Dodge a spot on the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office’s list of officers with potential credibility issues. 

In recent years, the DA’s office has kept a disclosure on file that would inform defendants that Dodge’s personnel file “contains sustained findings of neglect of duty and dissemination of official information arising out of a 2015 incident concerning a confidential informant.” 

According to records the city has released on its public-records website, the incident revolved around Dodge acting “reckless and negligent” in releasing the name of somebody who had called in a tip about an alleged crime. Dodge was accused of telling one of the people who the tipster had called about that “he would find out the phone number of who called in the tip and let him know what it was” — a decision that an internal investigation concluded “could put that caller at personal risk.” 

“When challenged with the fact that he did place the real caller in ‘life or death’ fear for her safety, [Dodge’s] response … was to blame ‘those people’ and the ‘lifestyle they choose to live’ as ‘putting themselves in danger,’” the department’s investigative report said. 

Dodge told The Shoestring it was a spurious case that Haigh and higher-ups initiated to retaliate against him for defending Buchanan internally. Most of the allegations against him in the case were untrue, he said, describing what happened as standard police work meant to get somebody with outstanding warrants to turn themselves into the authorities. He was originally given a suspension, though through his union he challenged the discipline and an arbitrator ultimately decided to reduce the discipline to a written warning.

“This was a retaliatory move by the department because I successfully defended this Black officer,” Dodge said, referring to Buchanan, who was ultimately exonerated in his case. “At the time, the department didn’t like that and they went after me.”

Dodge has faced a handful of civilian complaints, too, according to internal investigations the city has released. They include allegations that he and other officers were demeaning to a woman at her place of employment, belittling her over her interactions with police as a minor, mentioning her past acquaintances, then asking her on a date when she said to stop. Another alleges he had non-consensual sex with a woman after giving her “drugs and alcohol.” 

Dodge denied those allegations entirely, saying they never happened at all. 

Another complaint in 2010 alleged that Dodge and several other officers drove at “outrageous” and “scary” speeds when responding to a report of several men fighting at a playground on Bradford Drive. The complaint said the officers were speeding down High Street — the same street where, seven years later, Greenfield officer James Rode was driving 83 mph when he slammed into another car, killing the 29-year-old driver and critically injuring his passenger. A jury found Rode guilty of vehicular manslaughter in that case. 

“Police officers driving at such high rates of speed on any street is a danger to the citizens of our community,” the 2010 complaint said. “Somebody crossing the street, or a driver unaware or unable to pull over to get out of their way is in serious danger.”

Dodge said he doesn’t remember the incident in question, but that sometimes driving fast is just part of policing.

“Have I ever sped in a cruiser? Absolutely,” Dodge said. “That’s part of the job sometimes. Not everybody likes it.”

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Ahead of Desorgher’s decision Tuesday to name Dodge as police chief, several city councilors who have focused on police accountability told The Shoestring they were in the dark about the process for hiring a permanent chief.

Precinct 5 Councilor Marianne Bullock said the city should lead a transparent, public search for the next police chief. She also said she has questions about the sustainability of Desorgher’s decision to use one-time American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funds to open the police substation — especially ahead of a budget season when projected revenues aren’t likely to match the kind of budget the city needs.

Bullock said that under Dodge, the department has had a more open-door policy with city leaders, but that Greenfield shouldn’t be complacent when it comes to problems with policing. She said amid the turmoil at the police department in recent years, she spoke to many people who had been in-and-out of the criminal legal system. They complained about their treatment at the hands of Greenfield police, she said.

“I don’t believe that Chief Haigh was the sole issue,” she said. “There’s a culture problem.”

Bullock, who has advocated for non-police response in Greenfield, said that this year nobody spoke about policing during the City Council’s vote to approve the city budget. The previous year, there had been hours of public comment about the Greenfield Police Department. She said the scandals at the police department have perhaps left city leaders and organizers burned out. Efforts to reach Bullock on Wednesday morning were unsuccessful.

Precinct 2 Councilor Rachel Gordon said she understood the mayor’s decision to appoint Dodge as acting chief and was happy to work with him in that role. But she said she expected that it would be an interim position and that there would be a public search for Haigh’s replacement. Ultimately, that wasn’t the case.

“I’m glad to see that there’s an attempt at more community communication, I just hope we are investing at least as much in non-police responses to the issues people are naming,” Gordon said of the substation and hiring of a police-department community liaison. “Ultimately, I don’t think police presence is the answer to the problems people are identifying.”

Gordon declined to comment further when reached Wednesday.

City Council President John Bottomley did not respond to an interview request for this article. He did, however, provide a statement for the mayor’s press release announcing Dodge as police chief on Tuesday.

“Todd Dodge has demonstrated that he is not only willing, but wants to work with the community and city councilors to solve problems facing our city,” Bottomley said. “I have found him to be honest, straightforward, and responsive.”

Speaking to The Shoestring before his appointment as permanent chief, Dodge said that he would be moving ahead with his vision for the police department. He said he’s proud of the eventual opening of the downtown substation, the increased police presence at community events, and the creation of the Community Impact Unit. 

Dodge also said he wants to be sure that the department is doing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” work. He said the department has hired its first transgender officer and is working to make the department’s locker rooms gender-neutral. 

“We’re pushing the DEI, we’re hoping to continue to create an environment that’s reflective here to the community,” he said.

Dodge said the department has accomplished a lot in the short time he has been in charge, but that he doesn’t want to take credit for that work alone. He said the police department is the way it is because of the officers there, who intend to keep their “foot on the throttle.”

“And we’re never going to take it off,” he said. “That’s our intent.”

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