WILLIAMSTOWN â The Williamstown sergeant whose claims of harassment and bias within his department spurred doubts about local policing, and led the police chief and town manager to resign, is now himself under scrutiny.
Sgt. Scott E. McGowan was removed from active duty this week after he was named in an employee complaint. âI can confirm that Sgt. McGowan has been placed on paid administrative leave pending review of a personnel matter,â said Town Manager Jason Hoch.
Hoch said he directed Acting Chief Michael Ziemba on Monday to put McGowan on leave. Hoch declined further comment.
Separately, an investigation by The Eagle finds that McGowan had run-ins with area police departments, including being charged in a domestic assault and battery case in North Adams, on dates that overlapped with some of the incidents he flagged in the U.S. District Court lawsuit he filed last summer against two top Williamstown officials.
Town Manager Jason Hoch confirmed on Saturday that Sgt. Scott McGowan was placed on paid administrative leave this week. The leave was first reported Friday by The Berkshire Eagle, which also revealed several run-ins McGowan had with the law 20 years or more ago. McGowan, a full-time police officer in the town since 2002, last year named then Chief Kyle Johnson, Hoch and the town as defendants in a suit alleging discrimination and retaliation against a whistle-blower in federal court last year. He alleged that officials named in the suit had allowed or covered up incidents of racism and harassment in the Police Department and then had discriminated against him for reporting them.
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Alleging ‘racially hostile environment’, white former Smith College employee Jodi Shaw files discrimination complaint; school calls claims ‘baseless’
Updated Mar 03, 2021;
In what she describes as a first step toward filing a lawsuit, a white former Smith College employee has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination over claims of a racially hostile climate that the school has described as “baseless.”
Jodi Shaw, who resigned last month from her job as a student support coordinator at the elite women’s college in Northampton, said on her website that she filed the complaint Feb. 24. The complaint is signed by Connecticut attorney Michael T. Allen, whose firm specializes in higher education law.
The former worker says she plans to file a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Smith's president says the claim is unfounded.