This is the fourth part in a series that will look at actions taken by some Worcester City Councilors over recent years that, when viewed collectively, display a disturbing downward spiral towards a council that serves the interests of its members, not of city residents.
The introductory piece of the series, The City Council Circles the Drain, looks at a Worcester City Council resolution supporting Worcester Police Department actions in several recent cases. In isolation, the resolution is harmless. When viewed in the context of the behavior of the majority faction within the council, the resolution tells a different story.
The second piece of this series, Worcester Council Holds Fewest Meetings in 20 Years in 2025, looks at the near-total elimination of the ability of residents to put issues before their local elected legislature and the events from October 2024 through January 2025, which some councilors cited as the reason for eliminating that ability.
The third piece of this series, Worcester City Council Criticizes Manager, Snitches on Itself, reviews a discussion within the city council related to the specialized stretch code during its meeting on April 28. It’s not the stretch code itself that is important here, but how the discussion shows the sources of information councilors base their decisions on.
In this piece, we’ll look back at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation on Eureka Street one year ago, what city officials said compared to the reality on the ground at the time, and the total absence of any meaningful inquiry by elected officials.
The Worcester City Council has become for, of, and by the controlling majority of councilors.
On Thursdy, May 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents executed an operation on Eureka Street in Worcester the resulted in the arrest of Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira, a Brazilian national with a pending asylum claim in the United States.
Those awaiting decisions on asylum claims are legally present in the United States.
Ferreira de Oliveira told MassLive that agents first detained Oliveira’s two daughters. The older daughter had her infant son with her. The younger daughter, then 17 years old daughter was also at the scene. She said an agent told her on the same call that she had to come pick up her infant grandson from the scene as the mother of the infant faced arrest.
After Ferreira de Oliveira arrived at the scene, she was the only one arrested, giving the appearance that agents used her daughter as bait to entice her into a public area. Agents did not have a warrant for any of those involved to permit them to enter a private home to make an arrest.
As this process transpired, a group of about 30 people, mostly women, arrived at the scene. Both ICE and bystanders called the Worcester Police Department (WPD).
The first of many WPD officers arrived at the scene to find Ferreira de Oliveira inside an SUV driven by agents and some bystanders standing in its path to exit the scene. Some jostling for position and pushing and shoving occurred. Worcester officers cleared those obstructing the path of the ICE vehicle, which left the scene with Ferreira de Oliveira in custody.
Ferreira de Oliveira’s 17-year-old daughter, extremely distraught by seeing her mother forced into an SUV by masked strangers, chased after the SUV when it first began to leave the scene. Police arrested her, but the department later dropped those charges.
Worcester officers also arrested Ashley Spring at the scene on multiple charges, including Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon, a felony. The department’s press release on the incident said the weapon was an unknown liquid. Spring appears to pour or spill water on an officer during the arrest of Ferreira de Oliveira’s 17-year-old daughter.
Body camera video shows officers at the scene examining the container Spring held at the time and determining it contained water. Spring said the cup belonged to Ferreira de Oliveira’s infant grandchild.
Prosecutors dropped the felony charge. Spring reached a plea agreement for a suspended sentence until the one-year anniversary of the incident, May 8, 2026. Should the court confirm Spring complied with the agreement, those charges will be dropped. Spring says she did not admit fault in the agreement.
On Friday, May 9, 2025, the president of the union that represents patrol officers in Worcester issued a statement calling for an ethics investigation of then-City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj. As This Week in Worcester previously reported, New England Police Benevolent Association Local 911 President Thomas Duffy confronted Chief of Police Paul Saucier demanding charges filed against Haxhiaj after the Eureka Stregnoteet incident.
The Worcester Police Department called that report “lies” (its statement is included in the previous link). This Week in Worcester stands by its reporting. Duffy filed a defamation lawsuit against the publisher of This Week in Worcester, Tom Marino (the author of this piece) for, in part, that report. The claims in the civil complaint are frivolous. I have complete confidence that the lawsuit will fail. (If you are able, contributions to the defense against this lawsuit can be made here.)
On Monday, May 12, 2025, charges were filed against Haxhiaj based on the testimony of Worcester Police Officer Shauna McGuirk.
A jury found Haxhiaj guilty of Assault of a Public Official and not guilty of Interference with a Police Officer. Haxhiaj has notified the court of a forthcoming appeal.
Following the incident on Eureka Street, a statement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described Ferreira de Oliveira as a “violent criminal illegal alien.” At the time of her arrest, she faced a pending charge filed in February 2025 for Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon. Prosecutors dropped those charges in July.
Ferreira de Oliveira remained detained by the DHS until October 2025, when a judge granted her application for asylum. Although the DHS could have appealed that decision, it declined to do so. She was released and remains legally present in the United States.
The Company Line
The WPD says that its officers arrived at the scene to “preserve the peace.” Chief of Police Paul Saucier told the Human Rights Commission exactly that on June 23, 2025.
(Note: Saucier is first reading a question submitted before the meeting by the commission.)
The WPD also says its officers deescalated at the scene by putting space between the two sides.
The City Council majority has echoed this sentiment, praising the actions of WPD that day while some also criticized ICE.
Many observers at the scene say WPD officers arrived to support ICE agents and enable the extraction of Ferreira de Oliveira from the scene. Many noted that Worcester officers appeared to ignore most resident concerns but showed significant engagement with the federal agents on the scene.
Did the WPD response address the situation “by the book?” Probably. The counterpoint is that armed, masked men who won’t identify themselves using children as bait to arrest a woman legally present in the U.S. isn’t normal or a time for “by the book.”
Could the WPD have taken a non-intervention approach to the scene and focused its concern on the prevention of violence and injuries? Sure, it could have. This has happened multiple times across the country, including in Minneapolis, San Diego, and Philadelphia.
Why, then, did WPD officers who work in our city, and many who live in our city, show up to that scene and, as some see it, take a position against the residents of our city?
As I have said before, we want officers at all ranks of the police department to follow orders and established policies. I have repeatedly criticized the department for failing to hold officers accountable when they act outside those lines. It would be quite hypocritical to expect them to act outside those lines on that day on Eureka Street.
That leads to an obvious question: What were officers dispatched to the scene to do that day?
Orders to Responding Officers
With many documents now released and the public trial of Haxhiaj completed, we have much more information than we had at the time about the orders officers received when responding to Eureka Street on May 8, 2027.
A small minority of reports, but not most, include the comments provided to responding officers by dispatchers.
2025/05/08 11 :13 Rivera, Yarelis Rl76 ICE CALLING STATES ·rHEY HAVE AN OFFICER ON SCENE
HERE AND HE IS BEING SURROUNDED
2025/05/08 11 :13 Rivera, Yarelis RI 76
25 PEOPLE SURROUNDING ONE OFFICER
781-853-8277
2025/05/08 11 : 14 Rivera, Hazel RI 03
MALE CALLED SA YING 20 ICE OFFICERS HERE AND REFUSING TO SHO\V A \VARRANT …. KEPT
ASKING FOER THE PD CHEIF SAID THEY \VERE CAUSING A RIOT
2025/05/08 11 : 15 Rivera, Hazel Rl 03
413-977-1057
2025/05/08 11: 15 Rivera, Hazel Rl 03
NOV/ SOMEONE SA YING 16 EUREKA AND THE CITY COUNCILOR IS BEUNG HELD BY ICE
2025/05/08 11 : 16 Rivera, Hazel Rl 03
REQ CHEIF SAUCIER ….
2025/05/08 11 : 16 Rivera, Hazel Rl 03
2025/05/08 11: 17 Diiorio, Ariann D200
ANOTHER CALL – ICE IS TAKING PEOPLE AND THERES A BUNCH OF SCREAMING IN THE
BACKGROUND
From incident reports, several written within two hours of the 911 calls, officers wrote the following:
- Officer John Alers, 5/8/2025 1 PM – “On Thursday May 8th, 2025 at approximately 1114hrs, a call was dispatched to assist another Law Enforcement Agency (ICE) in the area of 36 Eureka Street.”
- Officer Juan Vallejo 5/82025 1:03 PM – On Thursday May 8th, 2025, I, Police Officer Juan J. Vallejo, responded to Eureka Street in Worcester to assist another agency requesting help.”
- Officer William Rivera 5/8/2025 1:04 PM – “On May 8, 2025, I responded as an assisting unit for a large group interfering with a Federal agency.”
- Officer Angela Lookwhy, 5/8/2025 1:15 PM – “At approximately 1114 hours, ICE called out requesting assistance from WPD”
- Officer Michael Casey, 5/8/2025 1:44 PM – “On 5/8/2025, Officer Juan Valejo and I, Officer Michael Casey, were dispatched to assist another Law Enforcement Agency (ICE) around 36 Eureka Street.”
- Officer Patrick Hanlon, 5/8/2025, 3:14 PM – “I was dispatched to 36 Eureka St. for a request to assist another PD. Communication advised I.C.E. was reporting their officers being surrounded by bystanders.”
There are more. You get the point.
Public statements after the fact do not appear to match the perspective of officers at the time of the response.
You would think someone would have a problem with that, but you can rest assured it won’t be the controlling majority of the Worcester City Council.
The Pretend It Doesn’t Exist Faction
How many committee hearings or special meetings did Mayor Petty or those in his coalition hold to inquire about what happened that day?
Zero.
The Human Rights Commission (HRC), which has volunteer members, has asked far more probing and difficult questions. Meanwhile, City Manager Eric Batista has spent the last several years doing anything he can to render that commission useless on anything police-related.
Surprising no one, the council’s majority has played dumb about anything of note happening with the HRC as well.
While this series is about the majority faction of the Worcester City Council, there is little to say about them on this issue. That’s really the point. They have spent hours, literally, talking about potholes during city council meetings this year. Councilors are even bringing in pictures of potholes to display on monitors during council meetings!
Yes, the roads are trash. Yes, improving all aspects of repairing them needs progress. I have no problem with the public flogging of the DPW commissioner during council meetings if deserved.
I have an enormous problem with total disinterest in the constitutional and civil rights of residents of, and visitors to, our city. I have a problem when people who claim to be fiscally responsible won’t utter a word about millions in taxpayer funds flying out the door for civil rights settlements and judgements.
I have a problem with the cowardice of prioritizing near-term political convenience at the expense of long-term progress on issues related to abuse of power.
So no, there isn’t a lot to say about the city council majority on this issue. That’s a reflection of their priorities. A list that you aren’t on.
