The Officer Harassed a Black Man for Washing His Car, Unaware the Man Was His Police Sergeant and His Career Was About to End

The previous supervisor had failed to identify the pattern, or worse, had identified it and chose to ignore it. The investigators noted in their report that Kowalski’s failure to properly supervise Castellano had allowed a problematic officer to continue violating citizens’ rights for years. The recommendation was termination. Castellano’s union fought it, arguing that he had been responding to a legitimate call and that his actions, while perhaps overly aggressive, didn’t rise to the level of termination. The department’s response was simple.

Castellano had profiled a sergeant based on race. If he would do that to a superior officer, what was he doing to regular citizens who didn’t have the knowledge or resources to fight back? The union’s argument failed. Castellano was terminated 9 weeks after the incident. His appeal was denied.

His law enforcement career was over at age 28. But the consequences went beyond just Castellano. The department launched a comprehensive review of how civilian complaints were handled. They found that under the previous supervisor, Lieutenant Kowalski, complaint investigations had been cursory at best. The review examined 127 complaints that Kowalski had investigated over his final 5 years as a supervisor.

Of those, 94 alleged some form of discrimination or excessive force. Kowalski had found merit in only three. The rest were dismissed as unfounded, unsubstantiated, or complainant withdrew. But, when Internal Affairs reexamined 30 of those complaints with access to body camera footage and dispatch records that Kowalski hadn’t reviewed, they found patterns of problematic behavior in 18 cases. Officers making stops without reasonable suspicion, officers using force in situations that didn’t warrant it, officers making racially coded comments.

Kowalski’s failure to investigate properly hadn’t just protected Castellano. It had protected multiple officers whose conduct needed to be addressed. The department published a scathing report criticizing Kowalski’s supervision and noting that his failure to properly investigate complaints had allowed problematic behavior to continue unchecked throughout his division. Kowalski had retired 6 months before the Whitmore incident, so he couldn’t be disciplined. But, the department stripped him of his retirement ceremony honors and made it clear that his legacy would be one of failed leadership.

Several community leaders called for Kowalski to return his pension, though legally that wasn’t possible. The department also implemented sweeping new protocols based on what the investigation had revealed. All complaints alleging racial profiling would be investigated by Internal Affairs, not by division supervisors, eliminating the conflict of interest that had allowed Kowalski to protect his officers. All stops would be reviewed quarterly for patterns of racial disparity. The department hired a data analyst whose sole job was to track stop data, looking for officers whose stops showed racial disparities that couldn’t be explained by legitimate factors.