The president of the Worcester branch of the NAACP has formally called for City Councilor-at-Large Kathleen Toomey to relinquish her leadership post as head of the City Council's Standing Committee on Public Safety. The demand comes amid an active internal affairs investigation into how local law enforcement handled a late-night vehicle collision involving the veteran municipal official earlier this month.
The incident occurred around midnight on September 2, when Toomey's vehicle struck an unoccupied parked car while she was driving home from a restaurant. The impact resulted in significant vehicular damage, requiring both automobiles to be towed from the scene, according to official police reports and released body-worn camera footage.
Following the collision, Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier initiated an internal affairs inquiry that same day. Saucier explained that the purpose of the internal review is to examine the actions of the responding officers and ensure that the prominent elected official did not receive any form of preferential treatment during the roadside encounter.
In a formal press release dated September 14, NAACP Worcester Branch President Fred Taylor appealed directly to Mayor Joseph M. Petty, urging him to prompt Toomey's temporary removal from her committee leadership role. Taylor stated that stepping aside from the public safety post would serve as an essential measure toward preserving transparency, accountability, and public trust in municipal governance and law enforcement institutions.
As the presiding chair of the City Council, Mayor Petty holds the official authority to determine council committee assignments. Despite requests for comment dating back to September 13 regarding whether he intends to seek Toomey's removal from the leadership role, Petty has not yet publicly indicated what action he plans to take.
Body camera recordings released to the media documented Toomey's interactions with police officers following the crash. When law enforcement questioned her regarding what led to the collision, the councilor stated that she was traveling down the street and that was all she could remember regarding the circumstances of the impact.
Additional details outlined in the recordings and community statements raised further scrutiny regarding Toomey's conduct at the scene. Taylor noted that the councilor spent several minutes attempting to locate her identification, offered officers items other than her driver's license, and explicitly requested that the responding officers place a telephone call to the chief of police.
The body camera footage also captured Toomey explaining to officers that she had been trying to contact Sgt. Anthony Petrone, a former union representative for the Worcester Patrolmen's Union. The councilor's references to high-ranking police figures have fueled concerns among community advocates regarding potential attempts to leverage personal relationships during an active police investigation.
Chief Saucier subsequently clarified that Toomey did not contact him during or immediately following the collision. Furthermore, the chief stated that, to his knowledge, no other personnel within the Worcester Police Department were contacted on the councilor's behalf that evening, though he declined to comment on the officers' specific handling of the scene until internal affairs concludes its probe.
Legal counsel representing Toomey has strongly denied allegations of impairment or wrongdoing. Attorney Michael Wilcox stated that alcohol was not a factor in the collision, describing the incident as an ordinary traffic accident and noting that Toomey may have attended an election night gathering earlier that evening in connection with the Massachusetts state primary held on September 1.
Nevertheless, civil rights advocates have raised serious concerns regarding the absence of standard testing protocols, questioning why responding officers did not administer field sobriety tests. Taylor argued in his statement that Toomey's behavior and the physical conditions of the collision presented multiple indicators that warranted a more comprehensive evaluation by the officers on duty.
The controversy is further heightened by Toomey's official legislative actions in the days following the crash. On September 8—one week after the collision and prior to the public or press becoming aware of the incident and the police inquiry—Toomey participated in a City Council meeting and voted to recommend against establishing an independent civilian review board for the police department.
Taylor sharply criticized Toomey’s decision to take part in that vote, asserting that she should have recused herself from any discussions or votes involving police oversight while an internal department inquiry concerning her own traffic collision remained open. Toomey has maintained a long-standing public position opposing the implementation of a civilian review board.
Toomey, who is currently serving her eleventh two-year term as a councilor-at-large, wields substantial influence over city public safety matters and additionally works as a post-release and reintegration specialist for the Worcester County Sheriff's Office, linking her career closely to regional law enforcement.
The NAACP's call for Toomey's removal as committee chair has been echoed by the Civilian Review Board Coalition, a local alliance of advocacy groups. Activists have drawn comparisons between the response to Toomey's crash and the department's handling of a collision involving Lt. Gregory Markiewicz, a member of the UMass Chan Medical School campus police who faces drunken driving charges.
As the internal affairs division continues its review of the responding officers' conduct, community organizations maintain that decisive leadership is necessary to uphold integrity in municipal oversight. The intersection of police procedures, elected governance, and ongoing demands for accountability continues to place heightened focus on the City Council's leadership.
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