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The Williamstown Police Department (WPD) in Massachusetts should dismiss police officer Craig Eichhammer who reportedly displayed a poster of Adolf Hitler in his station locker for several years, according to a letter sent by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on Friday to town officials and the interim police chief.
“As hate crimes continue to rise in Massachusetts, Williamstown residents need a police department that they can trust to stand against hate,” said Arusha Gordon, associate director of the James Byrd Jr. Center to Stop Hate at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This is not possible when the WPD retains an officer who displayed a symbol of white supremacy in the police station, suggesting a culture within the WPD that is tolerant of racism. The town must act immediately to build a police department that can effectively protect the residents it is sworn to serve.
Officer Eichhammer’s display of a white supremacist symbol has profoundly undermined public confidence in him, preventing him from performing his duties effectively and deepening community mistrust in the department, the letter said. According to the letter, his conduct violates WPD policy and is not legally protected speech.
Eichhammer also has faced public uproar for allegedly sexually assaulting a town resident in 2011 and lying about the assault during a criminal investigation. In June 2021, Eichhammer was placed on the Berkshire District Attorney’s Do Not Call list of officers whose credibility is so compromised that they are disqualified from testifying on behalf of the state.
Over the past year, other reports of WPD misconduct also have eroded public trust in the department, particularly among residents of color. In October 2020, a WPD dispatcher resigned after it was revealed that he had made racist, anti-Black Facebook posts. That same dispatcher, the town admitted, had shouted the N-word at a Black Williams College student touring the police station in 2014.
