Cop fired for sexual assault hired by public school to be sexual assault investigator

[KILZ FILLZ]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cop-resigned-groping-college-student-210600617.html
 

A campus police officer at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth resigned in the midst of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him in 2010. That same officer, David Laudon, was then re-hired as a school resource officer at the Blackstone-Millville Regional School District in the nearby town of Blackstone, Massachusetts. In his capacity there, Laudon was tasked with investigating reported sexual assaults and working with students in the public school system who have been sexually victimized, WBUR reported over the weekend.

 

According to the campus police report at the time, Laudon had given a 20-year-old college student a ride back to her residential hall in his cruiser. The student said he gave her a hug and groped her breast, and then proceeded to constantly harass her with frequent unwanted texts and calls. Laudon resigned during the investigation into his behavior.

 

Blackstone town administrator Dori Vecchio told WBUR she didn’t know about allegations against Laudon while he was at UMass Dartmouth until the outlet had contacted her. After WBUR provided further evidence of Laudon’s misconduct in his previous job, he was removed as school resource officer, but has stayed on the town police force. The police department’s website continues to list him as an investigator who handles sexual assault reports.

 

WBUR’s reporting traced more than a dozen current Massachusetts police officers who had been fired or resigned from another police department after or during a misconduct investigation—only to find work at another department. Other examples included officers who have been accused of domestic violence, arrested for drunk driving incidents, or found impersonating someone on social media and making vulgar posts.

 

Due to the lack of a formal database tracking investigations of officer misconduct, officers like Laudon are easily able to shuffle between police departments. Some states don’t have state-level tracking or certification systems for officers, either, making it easy for officers like those WBUR tracked to shuffle across jurisdiction lines.