Great Barrington — At their regular meeting on Monday, January 22, the Selectboard voted to table a motion to move forward with an independent investigation of Great Barrington Police Department’s actions at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School over a copy of the book “Gender Queer.”
It has been over a month since the police department investigated eighth grade ELA teacher Arantzazu Zuzene Galdos-Shapiro over a copy of the book. The incident, which took place on December 8, was captured by the bodycam of Officer Joseph O’Brien, who investigated an anonymous complaint to the department that Galdos-Shapiro had a copy of the book at the school.
Since then, it has come out that the department did not have a warrant to enter the school to conduct the investigation. Subsequently, residents and organizations including Berkshire Pride, American Civil Liberties Union, and GLAD Legal Advocates and Defenders have all heavily criticized Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue and Police Chief Paul Storti for the incident.
The ACLU and GLAD, along with Galdos-Shapiro’s attorney Howard Cooper of Todd & Weld LLP of Boston, have all called for separate independent investigations into the incident by both the Berkshire Hills Regional School District and the town. In his letter to the town and school district, attorney Cooper claims that the police investigation violated Galdos-Shapiro’s “secured rights under both federal and state law.”
At their meeting on January 11, members of the school district committee all voted unanimously to approve an independent investigation by the Great Barrington law firm of Cohen Kinne Valicenti & Cook.
At the January 22 Selectboard meeting, however, the board tabled a vote for a second and separate independent investigation at the recommendation of Town Manager Mark Pruhenski. “We were just assigned [legal] counsel through our insurance company this weekend,” Pruhenski said. “We met with the attorney for the first time earlier this morning. I’m recommending that [the board] moves the topic to the next meeting to give our attorney enough time to get up to speed. He has all the information he needs as of this morning and just needs a little time to read through it, digest it, and he’ll come back with a recommendation in time for the next meeting.”
Pruhenski said that the town’s insurance company, Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, has hired attorney Jeff Trapani of Holyoke on its behalf. Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon clarified that Trapani will not be conducting the independent investigation, but instead will be researching and analyzing information about the case. “In order to conduct an investigation,” Bannon explained, “we need the recommendation of our attorney that this is something that we should do since there is a possibility of pending litigation.”
Resident Debra Minkoff responded, “It’s concerning to those of us who have been spending time on this issue and have shown up at various meetings to now learn that there may be a reluctance on the part of the Selectboard to pursue an investigation.”
“Now, you’re misunderstanding that there’s a reluctance on the part of the Selectboard and that the Selectboard hasn’t discussed [the issues] in public,” Chair Bannon said in response. “We’re waiting for advice from counsel.”
“It’s super frustrating to think that it’ll be two months from the time of the incident until there’s some action taken,” Minkoff said.
Ananda Timpane, executive director of Railroad Street Youth Project, asked the Selectboard about the level of transparency that will be provided to the public with the investigation, and about the potential corrective actions being undertaken by the police department. “I would like to think of that as the town’s responsibility, not just the police department’s, to instruct staff and inform the public that law enforcement responses to concerns about books in schools and other educational programs are not appropriate and should not or will not happen,” Timpane said. “Is it possible to take action on that correction, or does all that need to wait until there’s been a full investigation with counsel?”
“I can say this, [town staff is] in the process of reviewing our policies and procedures,” Pruhenski said. “As promised at the last Selectboard meeting, the police department is also conducting a debriefing on this incident. We promised that we would come back to an open session with Police Chief Storti and discuss that publicly.”
Pruhenski said that he shared a draft revised version of a policy concerning police investigations in the school with town counsel. He said the Selectboard would hold a “listening session” to hear from the public once the proposed policy is before the board at a meeting.
Neither Bannon nor Pruhenski mentioned a time frame for the town’s investigation of the incident, nor did they provide an estimate of how much the investigation will cost the town.
Meanwhile, as of press time, there are no court records of Galdos-Shapiro taking any legal action against either the town or the school district.
Selectboard member Garfield Reed was not present at the January 22 meeting.
The Berkshire Hills Regional School District will be holding its regular meeting on Thursday, January 25, at 6 p.m., to discuss a proposed letter to the police department, along with a proposed resolution to support students and staff in light of the case. As of press time, neither a draft of the letter nor the draft resolution was available on the school district’s website. The meeting is scheduled to be held both in-person and virtually via Zoom.
