Former Mass. police officer decertified over function in lethal Charlottesville rally

A former Woburn police officer, who authorities say helped manage a lethal 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been decertified by the Massachusetts fee that oversees regulation enforcement requirements.

John Donnelly was placed on paid administrative go away on Oct. 13, because the Woburn Police Division launched an inside investigation into allegations that he deliberate and took part in an August 2017 “Unite the Proper” rally — a gathering of neo-Nazis and Klu Klux Klan members, a few of whom carried torches and weapons whereas chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans.

Through the rally, counter-protestor Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed white supremacist now in jail for federal hate crimes, intentionally drove into the group.

Woburn Police Division’s inside probe was launched the identical day HuffPost revealed a report, detailing Donnelly’s alleged function in Charlottesville.

Donnelly resigned from the division Oct. 17, earlier than Woburn’s inside investigation concluded.

Within the days after, Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin and police Chief Robert F. Rufo Jr. launched particulars from the interior probe, noting that they discovered that he “violated a number of division insurance policies by means of involvement in extremist teams.”

He allegedly used anti-Semitic and racist language, and offered safety for rally organizers, together with white nationalist alt-right chief Richard Spencer.

The probe additionally discovered that Donnelly, utilizing the alias “Johnny O’Malley” in individual and on-line, related to Id Evropa, a now-disbanded group that the Anti-Defamation League described as “a white supremacist group centered on the preservation of ‘white American tradition’ and selling white European id.”

Woburn officers submitted their findings with the Massachusetts Peace Officer Requirements and Coaching Fee, or the POST Fee, and beneficial that Donnelly be decertified.

The fee, launched particulars of Donnelly’s voluntary decertification settlement on April 13, adopted by an official decertification order on April 21.

Underneath the voluntary decertification, Donnelly revokes his certification as a police officer in Massachusetts. His title might be added to the Nationwide Decertification Index, per the order.

WCVB-TV first reported the information of Donnelly’s decertification on Monday.

Materials from earlier Boston.com reporting was used.