North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council

The North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council or "NEMLEC" is a private corporation formed by 58 police agencies in Middlesex and Essex County, Massachusetts.^[1] It pools police resources to provide specialized units in its service area. NEMLEC units include;^[2]

• dive team
• SWAT unit
• computer crime unit
• motorcycle unit
• detectives
• internal affairs

The organization is headquartered at 314 Main Street, Suite 205 in Wilmington, Massachusetts.^[3] In 2014 its president was Michael Begonis, the chief of the Wilmington Police Department.^[4] By the next year, press reports indicated the president was John Fisher, chief of the Carlisle Police Department.^[5] As a private corporation, NEMLEC claimed in 2014 that it was able to keep its internal organization and operations out of the public's view.^[6] It would not respond to open records requests.

As a result of a lawsuit by the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, in 2015 it changed policy and released documents requested by the public.^[7] Days later the Washington Post published an article based on the documents describing an "excessive" use of SWAT teams for routine police matters.^[8]

In late 2014, the group took down its website offline after the media noticed its “mission statement” page.

“The disorder associated with suburban sprawl as people migrated from larger cities, the development of the interstate highway system, the civil rights movement and the growing resistance to the Vietnam War threatened to overwhelm the serenity of the quaint, idyllic New England towns north and west of Boston,” NEMLEC mission statement^[9]

Agencies that belong to NEMLEC include:^[10]

Amesbury Police Department Andover Police Department Arlington Police Department Bedford Police Department Belmont Police Department Beverly Police Department Billerica Police Department Burlington Police Department Carlisle Police Department Chelmsford Police Department Concord Police Department Danvers Police Department Dracut Police Department Dunstable Police Department Essex County Sheriff's Department Georgetown Police Department Gloucester Police Department Groton Police Department Haverhill Police Department Lawrence Police Department Lexington Police Department Lincoln Police Department

Littleton Police Department Lowell Police Department Lynnfield Police Department Malden Police Department Marblehead Police Department Maynard Police Department Medford Police Department Melrose Police Department Methuen Police Department Middlesex County Sheriff's Office Merrimack Police Department Newbury Police Department Newburyport Police Department Newton Police Department North Andover Police Department North Reading Police Department Peabody Police Department Pepperell Police Department Reading Police Department Rowley Police Department

Salem Police Department Saugus Police Department Somerville Police Department Stoneham Police Department Tewksbury Police Department Townsend Police Department Tyngsborough Police Department Wakefield Police Department Waltham Police Department Watertown Police Department Wenham Police Department Westford Police Department Weston Police Department Wilmington Police Department Winchester Police Department Woburn Police Department

References

1. NEMLEC official web site, accessed 28 June 2014
2. NEMLEC official web site, accessed 28 June 2014
3. "Official web site". NEMLEC: The Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council. NEMLEC: The Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
4. NEMLEC official web site, accessed 28 June 2014
5. Quemere, Andrew. "Massachusetts SWAT Group Still Won't Abide by Public Records Law Despite ACLU Lawsuit". Photography is not a Crime. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
6. Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they're private corporations, immune from open records laws, by Radley Balko, 26 June 2014 Washington Post
7. Manning, Allison (7 July 2015). "Here are the SWAT documents one police agency wanted kept secret". Boston.com. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
8. Balko, Radley (8 July 2015). "Documents show excessive use of Massachusetts SWAT teams". Washington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
9. Regional police agency pulls website despite suit; by Keith Eddings, 15 December 2014, Glouster Times
10. http://www.massmostwanted.org/index.cfm?ac=MetroLEC, accessed 27 June 2014

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/local_news/regional-police-agency-pulls-website-despite-suit/article_5c16100c-26cc-5336-83e6-57d891d44f3d.html

http://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/agency-takes-down-controversial-website/article_ef2fe5ff-aae0-5292-ac52-38960fb08665.html