Police training group banned in 9 states set to host session in Worcester

WORCESTER ― A police training group that has been banned in nine states following scrutiny by officials in New Jersey is slated to give a training in Worcester Friday.

The group, Street Cop Training, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after New Jersey’s comptroller alleged it “taught unconstitutional policing tactics, glorified violence, denigrated women and minorities, and likely violated a myriad of state laws and policies.”

Video released by Acting New Jersey Comptroller Kevin D. Walsh shows instructors at a 2021 Atlantic City conference talking about assaulting people who run from police, encouraging stopping drivers without cause for training purposes and promoting what Walsh called a “warrior” mindset to policing.

Some instructors, video shows, talked about an affinity for violence — with one noting it wasn’t long ago we were “drinking out of the skulls of our enemies" — while the company’s founder, Dennis Benigno, talked about wanting to die in Colombia surrounded by cocaine and “girls” who “need to to do things to make money.”

New Jersey’s attorney general last month ordered retraining for more than 200 officers who attended the training, while multiple media reports show the company, in recent bankruptcy filings, says it was banned by officials in nine states.

Officials in New Jersey and elsewhere have said the trainings run counter to what they believe policing should stand for, run the risk of ruining police reform efforts and teach unconstitutional tactics that could lead to evidence being suppressed and the filing of civil lawsuits.

The company, which did not return an email seeking comment, is slated to give a training, “Massachusetts Case Law That All Cops Need to Know,” Friday at Worcester’s Hilton Garden Inn, its website shows.

The training was originally slated to take place at the training division of the Worcester Police Department at 9-11 Lincoln Square, prior online postings show, but was recently moved.

Worcester police are in the midst of a civil federal investigation after the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 said it found “significant justification to investigate whether” Worcester police engage in a “pattern or practice of racially discriminatory and gender-biased policing," and use excessive force.

In a statement to the Telegram & Gazette Friday, Worcester Deputy Chief Sean J. Fleming, who oversees the department’s training division, wrote that when it became aware of the controversy surrounding the company, it “immediately discontinued any association with them, including hosting any of their trainings or sending any officers to them.”

Fleming said no department officers were sent to the Atlantic City training and that training staff weren’t aware of any officers attending its trainings before or the department hosting its trainings in the past.

“Some of the content of their training is antithetical to how we view police training in practice and purpose and was, frankly, offensive to everything WPD stands for,” Fleming said.

Friday evening, city spokesman Tom Matthews, returning an inquiry from Thursday about whether the city had ever paid any money to the training group, said it appeared the city had paid it about $1,800 since 2020.

Worcester police spokesman Lt. Sean Murtha, asked about the payments, wrote in an email Monday that a check of records showed that five officers have attended three Street Cop trainings, most recently in 2021.

Murtha said two trainings involved “proactive patrol tactics” while a third involved “deceptive behavior and hidden compartments.

“The trainings were years ago, and the officers have gone to many in-service training sessions since then, so we do not anticipate singling them out for any remedial action,” Murtha wrote in response to a question about consideration of retraining the officers.

Asked if Worcester police officers could choose to attend the training at the Hilton Garden Inn if they paid the $225 cost themselves, Murtha said, "Officers can do what they want on their own time.  But if they want training to count as their workday or want the department to pay, it needs to be approved."

Asked about Street Cop Training, the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, which sets standards for police training in the state, said it was not familiar with the group and referred questions to the state’s Municipal Police Training Committee.

A spokesperson for that committee, Kayla Rosario-Munoz, said in an email that neither it nor the agency that oversees it, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, "have partnered with, paid or hosted any trainings related to the company Street Cop Training.”

The New Jersey comptroller’s report said Massachusetts is one of 46 states where a public agency had paid for Street Cop Training since 2020. A spokesperson for Walsh, Pamela Kruger, said Walsh’s investigation is ongoing and that she couldn’t provide more specific information about specific Massachusetts agencies.

Publicly available information indicates multiple towns including Woburn, Somerville, Northampton, Chicopee and Charlton have paid for services from Street Cop, most to its corporate name, NJ Criminal Interdiction LLC, in recent years.

Street Cop Training’s website notes it conducted a training in Webster on illegal firearms recovery in Jan. 2023. Its Instagram shows it trained in Foxborough in 2020.

The New York Times in December noted that the company has said it trains more than 25,000 officers nationally each year, and Street Cop described itself in a statement to multiple media outlets as “the largest and most praised training organization in the United States.”

The company told the outlets, including CBS News, that it had already “determined to impose stricter standards on colloquial and jocular language occasionally used by some instructors” before Walsh’s report.

The statement criticized the report — saying it did not contain “one single instance … where we have advocated any practice that is inconsistent with quality policing.

“Isolated excerpts taken out of context from a week-long training are not reflections of the overall quality of the education that Street Cop provides,” the company wrote, adding it has “saved the lives of uncounted police officers and citizens, and has prevented untold numbers of illegal drug distribution and human trafficking.”

Walsh’s report, noting more than 50 private companies advertise training in New Jersey, has urged that state to consider regulating such trainings.

Reuters, in a 2022 investigation of police trainers with ties to extremism, reported that the industry is largely unregulated and has gone without scrutiny across the country.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Street Cop Training, banned in 9 states, plans Worcester session