By Flint McColgan
Boston Herald
BOSTON — It’s really the end for disgraced former Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, who served as the case officer for both the Karen Read and Brian Walshe murder investigations.
The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission formally suspended Proctor’s law enforcement certification, according to a suspension order issued Thursday. That means he is “prohibited from performing police duties and functions in Massachusetts.”
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“The Respondent is hereby directed to surrender, and the Respondent’s former employing law enforcement agency is directed to collect, without delay, any outstanding agency-issued credentials and equipment that promote and support the performance of functions associated with service as a law enforcement officer,” the POST Commission’s order states, “including but not limited to, any uniform, badge, firearm, assigned cruiser, and use-of-force instruments, such as tasers.”
Proctor has a right to a hearing to challenge the suspension.
Proctor’s downfall began when he took the stand in the first trial of Karen Read, who was charged with murdering her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, in the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
During his time on the stand he was made to read text messages to friends and co-workers in which he called Read things like a “whack job (expletive beginning with a C)” and “a babe,” but with a “weird Fall river accent … no ass” and made fun of a medical condition she suffers. He also texted his sister that he hopes Read “kills herself.”
He was relieved of duty from the State Police immediately after that trial ended in mistrial and was suspended without pay about a week later following an internal hearing. He was finally fired in March, in what MSP leader Col. Geoffrey Noble called a “righteous decision,” ahead of Read’s second trial in which she was ultimately acquitted of all charges save for drunken driving.
Proctor had appealed his firing but gave up the fight in October.
Proctor has remained in the news throughout his fallout. Much of it has been due to the efforts of defense attorneys who fought to secure access to his digital records in the hopes that they may also include exculpatory evidence for their own clients.
One of those cases was that of Brian Walshe, who was convicted on Dec. 16 of murdering and dismembering his wife, Ana Walshe, in their Cohasset home. He has since been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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