By Shawn Regan
HAVERHILL — An arbitration
appeal hearing will begin tomorrow for a police officer suspended over an
incident involving a man who died from bee stings.
Officer Rick Welch, who is also
president of the patrolmen’s union, was suspended without pay for 15 days last
year for mishandling a call from an elderly woman who was concerned about her
son — a 57-year-old Silsby Farm beekeeper later found dead from bee stings.
Police Chief Alan DeNaro had
previously suspended Welch for five days without pay and recommended that Mayor
James Fiorentini suspend the officer without pay for another 175 days. A
five-day suspension is the maximum the chief can impose on his own.
In his Dec. 3, 2013 ruling, the
mayor upheld DeNaro’s original five-day suspension and added 10 more for a
total of 15 suspension days. Fiorentini said he relied on Welch’s otherwise
clean record in rejecting DeNaro’s recommendation to suspend the officer for
six months.
Welch appealed to an outside
arbitrator, who will hear the city’s case against the officer starting
tomorrow. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in City Hall.
The case focuses on Welch’s
decision not to send a patrol car to check on beekeeper Alan Schwartz, after
his mother called police at 2 a.m. on June 11, 2013, to report her son did not
come home that night and was not answering his cell phone.
While he was working in the
public safety dispatch center, Welch took the mother’s call, which was made to
the Police Department’s non-emergency line.
Police said Ina Schwartz told
Welch that her son was working with bees, that she feared for his safety, and
that she wanted Welch to send an officer to check on him.
Instead of dispatching a
cruiser to the farm on Salem Street in Bradford, Welch sent an email-style
message to the patrolman assigned to patrol that part of the city that night.
Welch told him to be on the lookout “during his travels” for Schwartz’s white
Tacoma truck, according to the message
