Duxbury police officer fired for bounced check
Officer Dale Parks has been fired by the Duxbury Police Department for writing a bad check and failing to make due on $2,000 owed to a local car dealership, said Town Manager Richard MacDonald.
But Parks's lawyer called the incident "a simple misunderstanding" between the officer and the business. Parks has appealed his firing to the state Civil Service Commission, which hears appeals by public employees who fall under the protection of the civil service laws.
"It doesn't rise to the level of an offense that justifies termination," said Bradford Louison, of the Boston law firm Merrick, Louison & Costello.
MacDonald said Parks's actions warranted termination as "conduct unbecoming a police officer." Parks was also suspended for six months two years ago for similar problems and had agreed to avoid violating department regulations.
The firing is the third termination of a Duxbury officer in the past four years. A fourth officer resigned two years ago, calling the department a "hostile work environment."
The incident that led to Parks's firing goes back to January, according to information from a town disciplinary hearing. Parks talked one of the owners of Millbrook Motors into allowing him to take home a Jeep owned by his girlfriend after promising that he would pay a $2,800 repair bill a few days later. Instead, he paid $800 on the bill in cash, according to Edward Loring, an owner of Millbrook Motors, and almost a month later gave the company a check that bounced.
Unable to reach Parks by phone, Loring then went to District Court and filed a criminal complaint against him. As of the town's June disciplinary hearing, $2,000 was still owed on the bill.
A Duxbury officer for 10 years and a member of the state National Guard, Parks testified at his hearing that he expected a refund from the IRS to pay for the repair work. He said that "nobody contacted me about the check" and that he hadn't realized it had bounced.
But town officials decided that Parks had reason to know that the check would bounce. MacDonald stated in a written decision that Parks had committed a "grievous violation" of department rules on "conduct unbecoming an officer." MacDonald said the severity of the violation "justifies his termination." 