October had been shaping up as one of those rare, magical months for the Massachusetts State Police.
Twenty-seven days in, and not one trooper had been arrested.
All month long, none of the troopers had found themselves unsteadily attempting to remain vertical on the side of the road, being read their Miranda rights after declining to participate in the sidewalk Olympics or take a Breathalyzer test.
Not a single one!
The State Police had sworn in a new colonel on Oct. 4, and then graduated the 90th Recruit Training Troop five days later.
But then, on Sunday night, Oct. 27, at 11:12 p.m., Trooper James Doran became the first member of his class, but probably not the last, to be lugged.
On Main Street in his hometown of Tewksbury, Doran rammed the back of a car occupied by two women.
According to the police reports, Trooper Doran and his male passenger were unsteady on their feet, had slurred speech and reeked of alcohol. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, especially about Mass. State police….
Doran must have been in pretty rough shape, because he forgot lesson one from his recent months at the Academy in New Braintree.
Namely, that when you get pulled over for driving legless, you must never admit to having more than “a couple” of drinks.
After at first sputtering out the magic c-word “couple,” Doran copped to “a few.”
He or the guy with him did know enough to say that the other guy, who was obviously not a cop, was behind the wheel.
Yet again, though, the type of low cunning we’ve come to associate with the MSP Crime Family was sadly lacking.
Occupant 2’s cell phone was found on the floor on the passenger side, and the broken windshield on the passenger side perfectly matched an “abrasion” on the second drunkard’s head. So he was out as the driver.
The incident report from the Tewksbury PD is not particularly illuminating. For instance, regarding the two women in the other car who were injured – there’s no mention of whether they were “hot” or not, which everyone in the MSP is careful to note, as we now know from the Karen Read trial.
It’s all very sad for Doran.
All his Keystone Kop training down the drain. He’ll never get a chance to show off his expertise in breaking taillights and then spreading the pieces around crime scenes to frame innocent people to protect his fellow crooked cops.
He’ll never have the opportunity to sell a hot CDL to some illegal alien trucker, or overdose on some contraband fentanyl grabbed by the gang unit.
Doran will likely never get to search a hot-looking female suspect’s cell phone for nudes.
He’ll never be able to solicit bribes from the relatives of bent cops in return for framing an innocent defendant.
Doran may never get to stand over the corpse of a strangled 23-year-old woman, shrug and say, “Suicide, obviously. Right Officer Farwell?”
He’ll never get a chance to have the crime scene talk to him. He’ll never get to lie under oath in court that he somehow couldn’t find 32,000 text messages between a pedophile cop and his dead, pregnant 23-year-old girlfriend.
A proud MSP career up in smoke, all for a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff’s and an opened can of Bud Light.
Somewhere, Dylan Mulvaney is shedding a tear.
Until he was recruited to The Family, Doran worked at the Middlesex County sheriff’s department. In other words, he was a correctional officer, a guard. An old sheriff once described to me what a lousy job he had.
“As sheriff,” he said, “I’m dealing with the absolute bottom of the barrel, the worst dregs of society.” He paused. “And then there are the prisoners.”
So Doran had the perfect credentials to become a state trooper. He was already a low-life.
Doran could have been a contender. Given his drinking habits, eventually he would have fit in perfectly in the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
I can see it now. Morrissey, Doran and Morgan – Captain Morgan, that is.
He could have joined Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik on the elite Rubber Ducky detail.
But he threw it all away. He’s going to be fired before he even gets to embezzle any federal money for an unworked overtime shift. He’ll never get to kill a motorcyclist while driving drunk on the Expressway. He’ll never get to sell confiscated guns for cash.
What are Doran’s options at this point? Well, he was in the same class with Enrique Delgado-Garcia, who was beaten to death in “boxing-training exercise” that has never been properly explained.
Maybe Doran could violate MSP omerta and tell the investigators what in fact happened in that boxing ring. Of course, before he flipped, Doran would have to find a real investigator who was interested in kicking butt and taking names.
And despite what the hackerama claims, there appear to be no such probers out there.
In his TPD mugshot, Doran is sporting what you’d call a “half-conehead” haircut. Perhaps he should finish the job and go full-conehead, then throw himself on the mercy of Internal Affairs.
What about claiming PTSD? That worked well a few years back for Andrew Patterson, also known as “the Foxboro Flasher.”
In 2019, the Foxboro Flasher went to a country-music concert in Foxboro with another trooper. In the stands, he got drunk as a skunk, pulled down his pants and began servicing himself in front of a woman. Then told a male concert-goer he had a “nice ass,” after which he punched him in the mouth and began eating his popcorn.
Per tradition, the State Police tried to broom the case at the Wrentham District Court, but some reporters showed up with a camera crew.
The Foxboro Flasher is now out on disability. Not even 40 years old, since September 2020 he’s been on a $67,078-a-year state pension.
What’s next for Doran? Probably not jail – that might be embarrassing, to go from being a guard at the Billerica House of Correction to being an inmate.
Is the Canton PD hiring? How about Stoughton?
Michael Proctor could not be reached for comment.