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Massachusetts officials have notified police chiefs that some officers have been getting around parts of their online training.
In a letter last week, Municipal Police Training Committee Executive Director Jeff Fanrsworth said officials had learned that some police officers have been "bypassing their TY25 online training by using technologies that override controls meant to prevent fast-forwarding through the training."
Farnsworth noted that the committee had found "instances where trainings that should take hours to complete are finished in a matter of minutes."
The committee is working with Acadis, the company that operates the training system, to look into the issue and determine what needs to be done to address it.
Police chiefs whose departments have members who finished online courses in less than the minimum expected runtime are being notified, Farnsworth said. Those officers will be required to do all their training for this year in person.
"Any officer that has failed to complete any required training in its entirety will be required to attend in-person training and their names will be forwarded to [the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission] for failure to successfully complete in-service training," Farnsworth wrote in the letter.
The POST Commission, established by a criminal justice reform law in 2020, maintains lists of disciplinary records, suspensions and decertifications for Massachusetts police officers, handling claims of misconduct.
