State Police hiring failures one for the books

Where do the Massachusetts State Police keep finding these guys?

Meet Joel Devine – suspended without pay since January, living in New Hampshire (according to the Attleboro Police), and charged with assaulting his gal pal.

Devine was only on the job for seven months before his ex obtained a 209A restraining order and he was arrested.

But don’t confuse this statie with Sgt. Bryan Erickson, also suspended without pay since January, living in New Hampshire and charged with assaulting his gal pal.

One difference is, Devine is charged with assaulting the female in Massachusetts, after which he has since headed north. Erickson is charged with throttling his woman in New Hampshire and then fleeing to Massachusetts.

Another difference: Devine remains a free man, out on bail. Erickson, who had a brief court appearance Thursday in Rockingham County, has been locked up for more than two months now.

As Devine awaits his next court appearance, the Herald has obtained the full incident report of the Attleboro Police Department on the multiple charges — assault on a family member, assault with a dangerous weapon and threats.

The Attleboro cops describe Devine’s victim as “Jane,” and she lays out another horrific story involving a state trooper. A call was placed to Devine’s cell phone Thursday, but a message said it was not accepting messages.

The entire (redacted) report is available here.

Here’s a gist of it:

Jane was 18 years old when she met the 25-year-old future trooper in January 2018. She’d been working in Chelsea.

“Jane described her relationship with DEVINE as ‘toxic.’… (they) would present themselves to the world as the ‘perfect couple’ in front of others … (but) Jane described DEVINE as mentally unstable and paranoid.”

Perfect material for the modern Mass. State Police, in other words.

“Jane stated that she observed DEVINE express his desire to kill himself and threatened to kill her and others on several occasions.”

Jane was attending Bridgewater State University, and during a visit to the campus in 2018, he “pushed her, causing her to hit her head … she sustained a concussion.”

Devine, she said, “convinced her to tell people her head injury was sustained during sexual intercourse.”

Rough sex! It’s a recurring State Police theme in these endless incidents.

At Christmas 2019, the love birds vacationed in the Bahamas, and while staying at a Hilton Hotel they had another argument.

“DEVINE placed both his hands around her neck and strangled her. Jane reported that during this incident she could not breathe … Jane stated that she believed this assault stopped when DEVINE realized that people outside their hotel room may have been able to hear the struggle.”

The next month, Devine began his training at the State Police Academy, graduating 11 months ago. He was working the overnight shift out of the Holden barracks when he was suspended without pay.

On July 4, the love birds decided to celebrate Independence Day with a night of “bar hopping” in Providence, which I had thought was being more than somewhat discouraged by local authorities back then.

Apparently not because in the course of their liquid evening, a man at one of the bars, in Jane’s words, “checked her out.” Imagine that, in Providence, at a bar.

They drove back to Devine’s home in Attleboro, where she says he pulled a black Glock from his waistband and pointed it at her.

“Jane stated the (sic) DEVINE was continually yelling she (in part) ‘better not be cheating,’ “I’m going to kill you’ and ‘you better not embarrass me.’

Last August, Jane believed she was pregnant. According to Jane, Devine insisted she abort the child. Jane said no and started walking down the stairs of his house, “at which time DEVINE exclaimed ‘You better not be pregnant.’”

According to Jane, he followed her down the stairs, pushing her, causing her to fall down the rest of the stairs, where she scraped her knees as she hit the floor.

“DEVINE proceeded to stand over her and produce a firearm. Jane stated that DEVINE pointed the firearm at her from approximately three feet away.”

She asked him to take her to the local CVS to get a pregnancy test.

There’s more, if you want to read it.

They broke up, but he kept texting her about new boyfriends. She says she believes she has seen Devine lurking around her apartment on “recent occasions” before going to the Attleboro PD.

Jane said she decided to go to the cops when she learned that “DEVINE threatened to kill Jane’s sister or the girlfriend of his deceased friend.”

Now he’s out on bail, awaiting his next court appearance. Devine’s lawyer says he “adamantly” denies everything. Devine now has my cell phone number — I would love to interview him on my radio show, go over these allegations one by one.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Erickson remains locked up for at least another couple of weeks. And then there’s another statie who’s been suspended without pay, the as-yet-unidentified “Trooper C.”

Trooper C has to be wondering when the MSP brass will release the report on how he, uh, lost his service weapon while visiting a, uh, friend, in Rhode Island last fall.

Another day, another MSP scandal.