By Steve Landwehr
CLICK HERE TO READ THE INVESTIGATION REPORT
HAMILTON — Officers up and down the ranks of the Hamilton Police Department, including Chief Walter Cullen, routinely and systematically falsified EMT training records, for perhaps as long as 10 years, according to a state investigation report obtained yesterday by The Salem News.
The report described a long-standing pattern of fraud in which many officers claimed to have taken training courses that were never held, and then obtained EMT certifications for which they were not qualified. The officers received extra pay every year for taking those courses.
Finding the department's behavior "endangered public health and safety," the state Office of Emergency Medical Services has pulled the town's ambulance license for at least a year and also suspended the EMT licenses of one former and eight current officers — including the chief — for not taking required courses and for falsifying documents to obtain recertification.
The agency also reprimanded 10 other Hamilton officers for falsifying attendance sheets and ordered them to complete other, unspecified "remediation."
The officers and the town have the right to appeal the disciplinary action, although the suspensions are now in effect.
The agency found that only four of the department's full-time officers did not falsify any records and were always properly certified because they took required courses outside the Hamilton police station. They are Officers Jeffrey Cross and Sean Cullen (the chief's son) and Sgts. Donald Dupray and Paul Grant.
The state agency's three-month investigation of the department reveals a world of widespread deception, ignorance of state laws regarding ambulance operations and, perhaps most troubling, casual regard for patient safety. Among other things, the agency found EMTs aboard the town ambulance failed to record vital signs or detail the treatment they administered, neglecting even such basic information as whether patients had been given aspirins.
It also portrays a chief who was complicit in the years-long deception and who attempted to shift blame to subordinates when questioned by investigators.
The documents indicate the training abuse was no secret to the town's highest officials, either.
Cullen's son-in-law, Officer David Mastrianni, who has since left the department, was in charge of EMT training for 15 years.
A former town dispatcher, Mary Ruth Stocking, told investigators that as long ago as 2000, Mastrianni would leave attendance sheets for training classes with her, so officers could sign them without actually attending the classes, and further told her to leave a space in the middle of the form for Cullen's signature.
Stocking said that in 2000, she and her attorney told Town Administrator Candace Wheeler what was going on, and Wheeler promised "the matter would be taken care of."
Stocking told investigators no disciplinary actions were ever taken.
Sgt. Paul Grant told investigators that during a closed-door meeting with Wheeler and the town's selectmen in November of last year, he detailed the attendance roster abuses, and later told Lt. Robert Nyland, Cullen's second-in-command, that town administrators were now aware of the goings-on.
Calls to Wheeler and Cullen for comment were not returned yesterday.
Dick Low, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, demurred when asked why town officials had done nothing for more than a year about the allegations of misconduct.
"We were aware of it, and we were digging into it," Low said. "Do I wish it had moved forward more quickly? Sure, I think we all do."
Asked what would happen next, Low said his board has a "process to follow" to punish the guilty.
"To a fault, we're going to be fair, but take appropriate actions against those involved," Low said.
Asked if Cullen is still in charge of the Police Department, Low said he is.
Cullen is scheduled to retire in February.
Training records falsified
The unfolding scandal within the Police Department was first made public by The Salem News in September.
The department has provided the town's ambulance service for at least 40 years. Its full-time officers, including Cullen, are required to be state-certified EMTs, and they receive extra pay every year to maintain their certifications.
They get 30 hours of overtime for taking the training courses plus $60 a week for their work as EMTs. That works out to $3,120 per officer, per year, in addition to the overtime.
To earn that pay, they are supposed to take 28 hours of state-required continuing education courses every year, plus a Basic-EMT Refresher course every other year.
Instead, what investigators found, was that before holding some of the classes, Mastrianni laid out attendance sheets on a desk.
Then, "EMTs lined up, signed the rosters during the first session of the refresher course and left," the report said.
They also found that, in many cases, police officers who signed the attendance sheets were actually on duty outside the station during the hours of the training class.
Investigators found that eight officers "failed to meet training requirements required for recertification and falsified documents to renew their certifications." Those officers were Chief Cullen and Officers Arthur Hatfield, Michael Marchand, Kent Richards, Brian Shaw, Karen Wallace, Stephen Walsh and Michael Wetson,
Four EMTs from Danvers were also cited because they also signed training rosters for a Hamilton course that was never held. They are Michael Bean, Scott Frost, Dana Martin and Robert Sullivan.
Investigators said another 10 Hamilton officers falsely signed attendance rosters but did not falsify documents to renew their certifications because they either took classes outside the station house or had not yet applied for recertification. They are Officers Joe Achadinha, Matthew Donovan, Charles Downey, Michael Girolimon, Keith Holloran, Andrew Neill, Sgt. Scott Janes, Detectives Kenneth Nagy and Stephen Trepanier, and Lt. Robert Nyland.
Richard Barthelmess, a Danvers EMT, was also named.
Mastrianni was found to have violated numerous state regulations and requirements and to have falsified training records, including his own for recertification as a paramedic.
Ambulance problems
The OEMS investigation indicates Cullen, as head of the ambulance service, was either ignorant of or ignored state laws regarding ambulance operations.
All operators are required to have a current Memorandum of Agreement with their local hospital, which in Hamilton's case is Beverly Hospital.
Investigators discovered there was no current agreement, and furthermore, that Beverly Hospital had advised the Police Department in December 2007 that a new agreement was needed. The hospital sent over a new one for signatures, but the hospital's EMS coordinator, Mark Millet, said the police never returned the agreement.
Cullen said the paperwork was Nyland's responsibility, but when Nyland was questioned, he produced an agreement with the hospital that contained no start or end dates and was improperly signed. Millet said the hospital never received it.
As part of the agreement, a Beverly Hospital doctor is required to oversee certain ambulance services, including the use of glucose monitoring devices. Cullen said Dr. Stephen Friedman filled that role, when Friedman, in fact, hasn't worked at the hospital for several years.
When Cullen was asked if EMTs had been trained to use glucometers, he replied, "If we are carrying this equipment, we must be trained." He said that was Mastrianni's responsibility.
But Mastrianni told investigators he had not conducted any training on the use of gluco-meters for at least five years.
Trust violated
Paul Dreyer, head of the state's Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality, which oversees the Office of Emergency Medical Services, said such deliberate violations are unusual.
"It's certainly a rare case we see this level of widespread abuse of the system," Dreyer said. "I don't think a municipal (ambulance) service license has ever been suspended before."
He said the agency is trying to figure out how it can ensure that other ambulance providers are not committing the same abuses.
The town would have to refile an application to get its license back and convince the state agency it deserved it.
Dreyer was asked how the agency could ever be sure the department could be trusted again.
"That's a very good question," he said. "We have a year to figure it out."
CLICK HERE TO READ THE INVESTIGATION REPORT