One question has been why Hinsdale officers continue to not wear body cameras despite a public promise two years ago that the department would have a program up and running by that summer.
Through records requests, WAMC has pieced together a timeline of how the Hinsdale PD applied for and won two grants from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts totaling $85,000 for officer and cruiser body cams only to see the program scuttled before the money was ultimately reverted to the state. Here’s that timeline:
- The story begins in the Summer of 2023: Then Hinsdale Police Chief Susan Rathbun applies for body camera program grant funding from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. She says the funding will equip 10 officers with body cams, which she describes as “cutting-edge devices [playing] a pivotal role in fostering transparency, strengthening community relations, and bolstering public trust in law enforcement.” The application names three officers as responsible for the body camera program: Rathbun and former Sgt. Elizabeth Zipp, of Hinsdale, and former officer Claude Jean-Calixte of the Cheshire Police Department. Rathbun and Zipp would leave the department by the spring of 2024. According to the Cheshire Police, Jean-Calixte worked with other Berkshire departments, including Hinsdale, Sheffield, and Lanesborough on a part-time basis to use his IT acumen to help with getting body camera programs off the ground. Both Sheffield and Lanesborough successfully implemented their programs. Jean-Calixte left policing this April. The timeline in the grant proposal called for the process to begin in July 2023 with vendor quote requests and notification of the Hinsdale Select Board. The proposal aimed for a full implementation of the body cams by the end of November 2023 or the following month. This never came to pass.
-Sept. 29, 2023: Town Administrator Bob Graves receives an email from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security confirming Hinsdale received almost $53,000 in body cam grant money. He received another email confirming the funding award on Oct. 12, 2023, but would later go on to tell a town resident in December 2025 that “former Police Chief Susan Rathbun had attempted to secure a grant to purchase body cameras for Hinsdale officers, but had not succeeded.”
-Oct. 2, 2023: An email to Rathbun from Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll confirms Hinsdale has received the body grant funding for around $53,000.
-Nov. 15, 2023: Rathbun receives an email from the Healey-Driscoll administration confirming Hinsdale has received around $37,000 for cruiser cameras from Massachusetts. Graves signs off on the grant paperwork the same day.
-Feb. 1, 2024: Then Hinsdale Police Chief Susan Rathbun files the first of three quarterly reports required by the grant terms, which says the department has yet to spend any of the almost $53,000 in body cam funding.
- February 2024: Sgt. Elizabeth Zipp leaves the Hinsdale PD not long after a formal complaint to Rathbun about allegedly violent behavior on the part of former Hinsdale Police officer Mathieu Mercier filed in February 2024. Those allegations include threating Zipp, Mercier saying he would shoot his former college, and his desire to see a Dalton dispatcher die in gory terms. The latter features heavily in the tensions between the two towns’ police departments before Dalton formally ended its mutual aid agreement in April 2026 after the January killing of Kauvil that saw two Dalton officers respond to the scene. Dalton Police Chief Deanna Strout also cited Hinsdale Police Chief Shawn Boyne’s decision making and attempt to blame one of her officers for the lethal mental health call among the reasons for the split. Emails between the two departments also show a long history of Hinsdale officers avoiding going through official channels while responding to calls, which allows their actions to go undocumented.
- March 2024: Emails between the Hinsdale PD and Motorola detail the use of the exact amount of grant funding the department received through Massachusetts for body camera equipment and software. Rathbun signed off on the order on March 11, 2024. In May 2026, Hinsdale Select Board Chair Maggie Gregory confirmed that Hinsdale received that order, which remained boxed up before being returned.
- Spring 2024: Then Chief Susan Rathbun promises residents in the annual town report that the body cam program will be fully in place by the summer as she prepares to step down.
- July 22, 2024: Office of Grants and Research issues email warning to the Hinsdale Police Department that it is delinquent in submitting a quarterly report for the April 1-June 30 period (known as Quarter 3) that had been due July 15. A due date for the federal Performance Management Tool report is set for close of business on July 24. As the grant contract only extends through June 30, it would be the final report required for the grant process and under the responsibility of the Hinsdale Police Chief – a role that was in flux at the time. Boyne officially succeeded Rathbun on an interim basis in May 2024 and is named permanent chief in late July of 2024.
- July 26, 2024 at 1:58 p.m.: Office of Grants and Research sends Hinsdale Police Chief Shawn Boyne a final notice to submit a federal Performance Management Tool report on use of grant or it “may be closed out and we will not be able to reimburse [the department] for any expenses occurred.”
-July 26, 2024 at 2:44 p.m.: In an email to both Boyne and Rathbun, Office of Grants and Research Justice and Prevention Division Manager Elizabeth Flynn refers to a phone call with Boyne that afternoon and says the office “[understands] the position [he] is in” and are there to help. She provides Boyne with what he must do to “request reimbursement for equipment and services [he has] purchased” using the body cam grant money, with a deadline set for July 30, 2024.
- Jan. 7, 2026: The Hinsdale Police respond to the home of Biagio Kauvil’s mother’s house. The only body cam footage of the shooting is captured by the two Dalton police officers who responded to the scene. The videos capture crucial moments of the incident, including moments that contradict Hinsdale Chief Shawn Boyne’s account of the situation as delivered in interviews to Massachusetts State Police subsequently.
- March 2026: Hinsdale voters approve a $25,000 expenditure to audit the town police department in response to the Kauvil killing.
- April 14, 2026: Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue ends a months-long investigation into the killing that finds no police officers behaved unlawfully during the Kauvil killing. He specifically calls for an independent investigation into the Hinsdale PD, citing Chief Boyne and Sgt. Dom Crupi as being responsible for concerning decision making. The same day, Dalton formally ends its mutual aid agreement with Hinsdale citing concerns over the department’s professionalism, Boyne’s efforts to blame a Dalton officer for the botched response, and other issues, describing the Hinsdale PD as a danger to other law enforcement as well as the public.
- May 2026: Hinsdale Select Board Chair Maggie Gregory says the town will once again pursue state grants to put a program in place. The town has hired a law firm to conduct an investigation into the events of Jan. 7, but chose one with ties to Boyne, prompting more outcry about the independence of the effort.
- As of June 2026, the Hinsdale Police Department continues to not have body cameras equipped.
- June 8, 2026: WAMC confirms that according to Hinsdale Select Board meeting minutes from May 13, town leaders have been preparing for Boyne and Crupi to return from administrative leave to active duty pending medical release from their doctors as early as next month.
- Acting Police Chief Bruce Cullett provided an explanation for the grant program’s demise, but he did not supply any documentation supporting his timeline.
He said Chief Shawn Boyne was appointed in late July of 2024 and discovered that the contract period for the Body Worn Camera Grant had concluded on June 30, 2024, however the equipment ordered had not been paid for and mandatory quarterly reporting had not been kept current. Cullett said Boyne also realized soon after taking over the department that additional costs related to necessary hardware upgrades, data storage/management, and training had not been included in the application for grant funding nor the Hinsdale Police Department Fiscal Year 25 Budget, therefore making it impossible to complete the BWC project at that time. According to Cullett, without the necessary funding in place to fully implement the BWC program, Boyne decided that the best course of action was to return all equipment and work with the Office of Grants and Research to cancel the grant shortly after taking over the department in the summer of 2024.
