P'town chief admits there are irregularities in police report of assault

Provincetown Acting Police Chief Warren Tobias told Bay Windows Sept. 25 that police officers failed to include pertinent information in their report detailing the investigation into the Sept. 10 assault on Richard Hall, a New Bedford man who was vacationing in Provincetown. Hall alleges that the assault was an anti-gay hate crime, and he has publicly accused Provincetown police of mishandling the case (see "Man Assaulted In P'town Alleges Police Negligence," Sept. 20).

Tobias said the report, written by Officer Paul Joudrey, should have included the names of the two men who called police to report the assault and who were with Hall when police arrived at the scene. The report also failed to mention whether or not police tried to determine if robbery was a motive in the crime. Hall told Bay Windows that one of the factors that led him to believe the assault was motivated by anti-gay sentiment is that the assailants did not steal his credit cards or the $200 he had in his wallet; the police report makes no mention of whether officers asked him if he had been robbed by the attackers.

Tobias said the fact that the assailants did not steal Hall's money may indicate that the attack was a hate crime, but he said investigators are not ruling out other possibilities.

"I don't know the answer to that question about why [information about Hall's money and credit cards] wasn't in the earlier report. ... As to whether or not that's an indicator, that's certainly a possibility. ... It's also possible that stealing his money might have been the motive, but it might have been interrupted," said Tobias.

Last week, Hall told Bay Windows that he believes he was assaulted by two to three men outside Spiritus Pizza on Commercial Street. He said he remembers that one of them called him a faggot and that he called out a retort in response before being hit on the back of the head. After that he has no memory of the assault or of his interaction with Joudrey, other officers and a rescue squad called to the scene by two men who witnessed Hall emerging from the beach access next to Bubala's restaurant on Commercial Street. Hall's next memory after being hit from behind is of driving back to New Bedford after parting company with Provincetown Police.

According to Joudrey's report, two men called police to report the assault. The report does not give any information about who the two men were, nor does it indicate whether they were questioned by officers at the scene. It states that officers left Hall in their company, at Hall's request, but Hall says he has no memory of the men.

"I believe that that information [the names of the men who called the police] should have been in the report," said Tobias.

Tobias said since Bay Windows reported on the assault last week, police have contacted the two men, but he declined to say whether police had taken down contact information from the men at the scene or whether police tracked them down through other means.

"We sought them out and contacted them, and we do have statements from them," said Tobias.

He declined to say whether the department was investigating the officers' handling of the case the morning of the attack.

"We are continuing to work on the case," said Tobias. "We have pursued several avenues of information gathering, although I don't want to comment on what those are. I have had conversations with the officers involved and I am satisfied that the investigation is on track."

Last week, Tobias told Bay Windows that police had no leads in the case because Hall could not remember anything about the men who assaulted him.

Tobias refuted a Sept. 22 report in the Cape Cod Times stating that the assault on Hall was one of three incidents over the past summer that Provincetown police are investigating as possible hate crimes. The Times detailed two other incidents, one in which a man from East Hartford, Conn., alleged that a young man called him a faggot this past June and threw rocks at other people near the intersection of Commercial and Court Streets, near the location of Hall's assault. The paper reported that in August two gay men were hit by bicycles by a group of local youths.

Tobias said that police are investigating the two other incidents detailed by the Times as hate incidents, not hate crimes. Hate incidents involve reports to police of someone using hateful language but not committing a crime.

Tobias said there have been no reported hate crimes in Provincetown since 2004, when a transgender woman was assaulted. He said the perpetrator was convicted of a hate crime assault. To date, Tobias said, there have been eight reported hate incidents in Provincetown in 2007, not all of them LGBT-related. The prior year there were 11 in total.