New Police Chief Brian Keenan: ‘Holyoke is not a place to do crime’

HOLYOKE — A six-month search for a police chief culminated on Thursday when Mayor Joshua Garcia named Brian Keenan to monitor the city with one of the highest crime rates in the state.

“I’m an outside candidate but I’m a local guy” said Keenan, introducing himself to the 30 people gathered in Holyoke’s City Council Chambers as a son of an immigrant mother, the brother of a public school teacher, and a Westfield State University graduate in criminal justice who grew up just south of Boston.

He has spent the majority of his 27-year career as an officer with the Springfield Police Department, including the last eight years as captain.

Garcia’s decision followed an almost hourlong interview in which Keenan was grilled by the mayor on his proposed response to Holyoke’s most pressing obstacles.

“We have people speeding in neighborhoods, people shooting up in public spaces a lot of times in broad daylight,” the mayor said, emphasizing that his questions were prompted by the “pulse” of the community and their everyday concerns. “We have needles being left in public playgrounds. Issues around prostitution, gun violence, domestic violence. We even have open air drug dealing.”

Keenan agreed about the magnitude of the challenges that face him and Holyoke department, but said that these issues are “nothing that we haven’t dealt with before,” expressing jokingly he was ready to combat the issues beginning as early as tomorrow. His start date will actually be determined by contract negotiations currently underway.

Keenan proposed solutions which centered on more diligent communication within the department and by tapping into available resources, including more collaboration with the Massachusetts State Police. Other goals include putting the department on a long-term trajectory toward accreditation, and following the roadmap laid out by an audit of the department conducted in 2023, which Keenan says he has thoroughly read over multiple times.

The audit sets forth the need for increased training, highlights inadequate numbers of patrol officers and funding, and other problems that lead to subpar results for Holyoke’s law enforcement.

Keenan pointed out the role courts play in administering justice as well, and uprooting crime will need to be a project the Holyoke District Court becomes serious about, he said.

“Oftentimes we’ll arrest people for low-level drug dealers, and the courts will say ‘oh it’s just possession, it’s just possession.’ It’s no big deal on High Street, but if you’re going to the Amherst green, or if you were doing it in the middle of Longmeadow, it would be a whole different story. So we have to really compress it. Holyoke is not a place to do crime.

He continued, “It’s a fine line between compassion and enforcement in the trade. We have to be able to do both, and that comes from leadership, that comes from direction,” which he also said would alleviate what Garcia called a “divided culture” within the police department itself.

Speaking on the division, Keenan said this is not unique to Holyoke and that, “Policing can be a testosterone driven business where people aren’t always accepting of others, and it can be very competitive. And there’s also a culture of haves and have-nots,” he said, which according to Keenan is remedied by open lines of communication.

“We’re going to have a couple of big team meetings, and we’re going to get on the same page. Those who don’t want to get on the bus are going to get off it, because it’s too important. This is a time in policing where there aren’t great numbers, where there aren’t great resources.”

He would go on to say, “We don’t have to come over each other’s house for Christmas,” but the goal is “communication, leadership, and getting everybody in the same room and realizing that we’re all on the same team.”

He also boasted his history of communication with regional resources, saying that “I’ve been able to maintain excellent contacts with legislators, city councilors, administration,” and others.

Garcia also prompted Keenan to explain what was learned after the Spingield Police Department was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2018, after misconduct was reported by a veteran officer toward a minor in 2016, which brought to light further instances of brutality in the department in violation of Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

Keenan, who was not a subject of the investigation, said Springfield Police used that process to codify important policies, including the widespread use of body cams, more adequate training, and other initiatives, all of which Keenan had been an integral part of as the supervisor of a restructured unit after the DOJ’s findings.

At present Holyoke does not utilize body cams, a technology which Keenan said met reluctance at first in Springield, but has become an integral part of them feeling safe on patrol.

After officially giving the nod to Keenan, Garcia closed the night by commending him for surviving the process, and said that its intensity was representative of the city’s seriousness about the crucial aspect of the police chief for the city moving forward.

Keenan will replace David Pratt, who had served in the capacity since 2021 when he was selected by former mayor Alex Morse. The past six months have presented a set of hurdles for candidates, which had included reviews by a special counsel made up of various city officials, as well as an essay submission, community forums, and various assessments. The process was facilitated by Public Safety Consultants LLC, and overseen by Holyoke’s Personnel Director Kelly Curran.

Keenan was the last standing candidate in a pool of four after the others removed their bids for the position along the way.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.