News Notes: The Chicopee Police are destroying public records
By Maya Shaffer
CPD PIO Michael Wilk
Michael Wilk, the Chicopee Police Department’s Public Information Officer who runs the department’s social media accounts, has been destroying public records.
This morning I filed a report with the Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office, which oversees the state’s feeble public records law, about the Chicopee Police Department destroying public records. In Massachusetts comments made on government agency social media accounts are considered public records and agencies have a legal obligation to treat them as such. Instead the CPD deletes comments on their Facebook page for a number of reasons listed in a policy the department calls “terms of service” that they posted as a note. PIO Wilk, who manages the page, recently posted a reminder about the policy. I responded with three comments and 11 hours later two of the three comments had been deleted.
The first comment which remains is, “Under the Massachusetts public records law comments made to government organization's social media accounts are recognized as being public records. There is a guidance from the state spelling out that it is your legal responsibility to preserve comments (you are required to document and save them), so your policy of deleting comments based on content (or having links or pictures) means that you are destroying public records. Destruction of public records in a crime and can lead to fines or up to a year of imprisonment. I will be posting links to the guidance and to the section of the records law that covers the fees and imprisonment. Don't delete them.”
What followed that comment was two separate comments with just the links to the guidance and criminal statute. Those two were deleted.
I sent the email below in hopes that Galvin’s office will refer the crime to Attorney General Maura Healey whose office would be the ones to enforce the law.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Maya Shaffer <maya@crit.news>
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 1:14 AM
Subject: Chicopee Police Department are destroying public records.
To: <pre@sec.state.ma.us>, <lvezina@chicopeepolice.com>
Good morning,
The Chicopee Police official FaceBook account has been destroying public records. The guidance about social media put out by the state makes it clear that comments to the page are public records, but the CPD have a policy that leads to them deleting comments. They posted a recent notice about this policy and under it I explained that they were destroying records then separately left two comments with links to the state guidance and to the section of MGL that makes the destruction of these records a criminal offense. In response the CPD deleted my two comments. The Public Information Officer who runs the page is Officer Michael Wilk. Wilk destroyed these records in full knowledge that doing so is a crime.
I am providing screenshots of my posts and screenshots from 11 hours later showing my comments were no longer present. I would like the destruction of records to be referred to the Attorney General’s office. Please order the CPD to stop destroying records. Please order retraining on social media records retention for the CPD.
CPD FaceBook policy under which they destroy public records
Thank you for your consideration,
Maya Shaffer - Founder Critical MA News
Crit.News
