Barry Scott back to court; P'Town to train summer officers on hate crimes

Barry Scott, the openly gay DJ arrested last July while DJing at a private house party in Provincetown, is going back to court April 11 to ask Orleans District Court Judge Therese Wright to grant him access to an internal police investigation into his arrest.

Scott's attorney, William Korman, said that Barnstable County District Attorney Michael O'Keefe's office has indicated it will try to block the release of the internal investigation, but Korman said he believes the report may show that the officers who arrested Scott had a pattern of overreacting during police situations. Scott, who is charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace, suffered a gash to the nose and cuts on his toes and legs during the arrest, which occurred after police arrived at the party for the third time that evening in response to noise complaints.

"We are attempting to get those internal review documents as well. It's our allegation that there was a pattern of conduct that was engaged in by these officers, and we want to be able to bring it to the attention of the jury when this case comes to trial," said Korman.

O'Keefe's office did not return a call to comment for this story. In September O'Keefe's office released its own investigation of Scott's arrest that found that Provincetown Police acted appropriately.

Korman is the second attorney to represent Scott in the case. Christopher Snow initially represented Scott, but Korman declined to say why Scott switched defense attorneys. Korman said Scott hired him in early January. Snow did not return a call to comment for this story, and Scott declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.

Last November Snow filed a motion asking Wright to dismiss the charges against Scott, but Korman said the judge rejected that motion shortly before Scott hired him to replace Snow.

Scott's arrest was one of at least two major incidents in P'Town last year, along with police response to the alleged gay-bashing of Richard Hall in September, that prompted critics to claim that the Provincetown Police were ill-equipped to respond to hate crimes. In response to those incidents the department brought in the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) last month to do a hate crimes training for officers. Acting Chief of Police Warren Tobias told Bay Windows that the department is currently finalizing the hiring of 10 summer officers to augment the department during tourist season, and the ADL will be coming back down in late May to train those officers about hate crimes, as well.

"ADL's coming down to do the same training with summer officers as they did the full time: the same training, four hours," said Tobias.

He said prior to the ADL training last month it had been about four to five years since Provincetown's fulltime officers had received training around hate crimes. He said he was unsure why there was such a long gap in the training, explaining that he was not serving as chief for much of that period.

Beyond ADL's hate crimes training Tobias said summer officers would also be trained on the diversity of Provincetown's community and the tourists who visit the resort town each summer, particularly the LGBT community. He said groups like the Provincetown Business Guild and the chamber of commerce will meet with summer officers during their training to give them a sense of the community that they will be policing.

"It isn't just how to be a police officer. It's how to be a police officer in Provincetown," said Tobias.