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Read sues over texts
Karen Read, acquitted for the murder of Boston cop John O’Keefe, filed suit alleging that obscene and racist text messages between two cops who investigated her reveal a “culture of bias and corruption that they built, tolerated, and hid from the public.”
“Karen Read says new lawsuit is 'crusade' to expose police corruption, bigotry and misogyny Read sued the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police on Thursday”
Read’s lawsuit, filed Thursday in Bristol Superior Court, targets the Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton and says both organizations worked to conceal “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.”
The complaint describes former Trooper Michael Proctor as the lead investigator in the failed murder case against Read and former Canton Police officer Sean Goode as a co-investigator, and it says the messages were shared over the course of a decade.
State Police Colonel Geoffrey D. Noble condemned the messages as “abhorrent,” saying they “underscore and fully support my decision to terminate Michael Proctor.”
Proctor, Goode fallout
The lawsuit alleges that in a message about a crash in Canton, Proctor wrote, “I wouldn’t rush if you’re working. Let them die,” and it also includes a message where Proctor said, “America sucks…. Hitler was really on to something then the (expletive) US had to step in and ruin it.”
Goode resigned this week after being on paid administrative leave from the Canton Police Department amid an outside investigation into alleged misconduct that first came to light during the Read trial, and the Town of Canton said it removed Sgt. Goode from the workplace and retained an independent investigator.
In response to the lawsuit, Proctor’s lawyer Matt Hamel said the focus on anything other than Read’s conduct on the night Officer O’Keefe was killed is “as telling as it is predictable.”
Massachusetts State Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble said the messages are “entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency,” adding they do not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within its ranks.
What’s at stake next
Read’s lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages and argues that the biased and corrupt investigation that harmed her was the natural consequence of MSP and CPD hiring and promoting “biased and corrupt law enforcement officers.”
The complaint reproduces dozens of text messages, recordings and other communications attributed to former state trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode, and it alleges the materials show both men were unfit to participate in the investigation and that their conduct reflected broader failures in oversight.
Read’s attorneys say the messages show “an (embedded) culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations,” and they frame the lawsuit as a continuation of her claim that she was set up.
In the aftermath, the Town of Canton said it learned of the lawsuit through news reports and a press release and had not yet been served with the complaint, while State Police said it is working to rebuild trust with the public after Noble said the misconduct harmed the public trust on which its mission depends.
