FALL RIVER -- A city patrolman was fired last month for smoking cigarettes, the Police Department announced yesterday.
Patrolman Wayne H. Jeffrey was fired under a little-known law stipulating that municipal police and fire departments can terminate any officer hired after 1988 who smokes tobacco products.
The Fall River department received an anonymous letter on May 7 accusing Jeffrey of smoking at a party. Jeffrey said yesterday that he was informed of the letter on May 8, and was suspended from May 9 until May 22. Deputy Chief Alfred Morrisette presided over an internal-affairs hearing on May 22.
On May 29, Jeffrey was fired. He plans to appeal the decision.
He had been on the force for seven years, starting as a 35-year-old rookie, leaving a higher-paying job working sheet metal to take the post.
During his time on the force, Jeffrey earned his associate's degree in criminal justice, he recounted in an interview in his living room yesterday.
He was awarded a trophy for his work on the city's bike patrol, and for the past seven months he had worked in the department's computer investigation unit. "I put in 110 percent," he said.
But his career has ground to a halt. "Everything is gone," he said, explaining that he lost his family's health insurance and three weeks' paid vacation.
"I didn't get to meet my accuser," Jeffrey said yesterday. He said he also did not get a chance to refute the letter: It alleged that he smoked at a party held Easter weekend, but he and his wife, Stephanie, say he spent the weekend with his family.
At the hearing, Jeffrey did admit to smoking. "I knew that it could mean the difference in my career, but I wasn't about to lie," he said.
During the hearing, a superior officer testified against Jeffrey, saying they had smoked together, Jeffrey recalled. Because the other officer was hired before the law was passed in 1988, he was not subjected to firing.
"It's almost selective firing," Jeffrey said. If the department accepts anonymous letters, he said, anyone with a grudge against a particular officer could accuse him or her of smoking.
Jeffrey said he does not plan to name officers hired in the past 15 years with whom he smoked. "I'm not going to put other families through what I'm going through," he said.
Of the 228 officers in the department, more than half were hired after 1988, according to Director of Municipal Services James Smith. When asked how many younger officers smoked, Jeffrey did not give a figure.
"I have no knowledge of any of the newer people smoking," said Fall River Police Association President Jeffrey Gregory. However, he noted, most younger officers work the night shift, so he has limited contact with them. Gregory said some older officers do smoke, but he was unsure how many.
Union lawyer William Camara will represent Jeffrey, who is taking his case to arbitration. Jeffrey said he does not plan to fight his dismissal in court, because the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the law in a similar case.
Jeffrey is the third municipal employee in Massachusetts to be fired under the law, following Plymouth officer Lynne M. Rossborough, who lost her job in 1993, and Springfield firefighter John S. Marrero, fired last year.
RHODE ISLAND has no similar law, according to George Arruda, the former Tiverton police chief who now heads the department in Swansea.
Despite the legal disparity, Arruda said, few Tiverton officers smoked: "Over time, there's been a change of personal habits. A lot of people come into this profession who do not smoke."
But officers in Rhode Island are still free to choose whether to smoke, as are officers in each state except for Massachusetts. No other state has a similar law, according to Kevin H. Watson, spokesman for the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization.
"We've never heard of a single other state imposing such draconian restrictions on the officers' private lives," Watson said. "It's one thing if an entity wants to say 'to qualify for your health plan, you need to be tobacco-free.' To fire someone is different."
But the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the law in a 1997 decision, ruling on Rossborough's appeal of her firing. In that decision, the court suggested that the Massachusetts Legislature enacted the law "in an effort to reduce the number of police officers and firefighters who obtain substantial disability benefits from public funds . . . as a result of heart disease due to smoking."
Watson argued that the law's goal of reducing the effects of smoke is unusual, because it is not applied to all municipal employees.
"I have no knowledge of the younger people smoking," said Gregory, of the police association. Among the older officers, hired before 1988, whether to smoke is a matter of personal choice.
So long as the law stands, the Fall River department said it will enforce it. "Appointing authorities have the responsibility to enforce the prohibition against smoking tobacco products," public information officer Lisa Ahaesy said, quoting the law in the department's statement issued yesterday.
In the meantime, Jeffrey is back to his trade, working sheet metal, and is joining the Massachusetts Police Association in its fight to change or eliminate the law.
"If I was high and smashed into three cars with a six-pack beside me, I could be 'rehabilitated,' " Jeffrey said. But when an officer smokes, no rehabilitation programs are available. Jeffrey said there was nowhere he could turn for help without risking his job. "You're stuck."
Jessica Resnick-Ault can be contacted by phone at 508-674-8401 or by e-mail at JRAult@projo.com.
