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Stonington DPW employee Daniel Olvierio looks at a surveillance camera in April as coworker Patrick Keena places syringes in the gazebo at Donahue Park to take a picture. Police and town officials said the syringes shown in a photo shared earlier this year were collected in the park, but not at one location or after one day as indicated in social media posts. Photo courtesy Stonington Police Department surveillance footage
Stonington DPW employee Daniel Olvierio looks at a surveillance camera in April as coworker Patrick Keena places syringes in the gazebo at Donahue Park to take a picture. Police and town officials said the syringes shown in a photo shared earlier this year were collected in the park, but not at one location or after one day as indicated in social media posts. Photo courtesy Stonington Police Department surveillance footage
STONINGTON — A series of miscommunications regarding cleanup efforts and syringes found at Donahue Park, including some that contained incorrect information, and a photograph depicting a collection of syringes in the park gazebo that was shared to social media played a significant role in sparking recent public outrage and has led to calls for action against several town employees.
While the town’s public works employees were, in fact, part of the issue as a result of that miscommunication, town officials this week remained adamant that there was no malice or bad intent on their part.
The employees in question, Department of Public Works staff members Daniel Oliverio and Patrick Keena, will not face any discipline or charges for their role in a confusing web of misinformation regarding the issue, Stonington First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough said Wednesday. Oliverio and Keena were two of the four assigned to an extensive cleanup at the park in April when the photo was taken, and both were seen in surveillance footage.
Early news reports had indicated that investigations determined that the photograph was staged, but officials said Wednesday the investigation’s findings were more complicated and that the syringes in the photograph were in fact all collected from the park that day and were not brought or supplied by the employees themselves.
“As were many residents, I was extremely upset by what was shared and what took place, but as leaders we don’t have the option of acting on emotions,” Chesebrough said Wednesday. “We need to look at the whole picture and review all the facts collectively, and that’s what we did before making any decisions on discipline in this case.”
A Stonington police report and related documents, obtained via Freedom of Information request, detail a series of events and a chain of communication that led to confusion and an unintended distribution of false information.
The conversations broke down quickly, similar to an elementary school game of “telephone.”
Police began a direct, intensive investigation in late April after a social media post sharing the picture. The park is named in honor of Donahue’s family, and on the day the photos were taken Chris Donahue, who sits on the town's Board of Education, shared a post critical of police and town officials in which he said his father and grandfather would be “spinning in their graves.”
On Wednesday, Chesebrough said the town has in fact been dealing with issues in the park, which reached a plateau last summer when elected leaders, Stonington Human Services staff and police began implementation of a multi-step plan to address use of the park by homeless and home-insecure residents, as well as seeking to identify and eliminate drug use and other issues reported.
The town had made progress, but Chesebrough said there are still occasional issues and ongoing efforts to provide proactive solutions. She said that on the day the pictures were shared, Keena was identified on camera placing the syringes in the gazebo and taking a picture with his cell phone before picking them up again. Oliverio appears to be serving as a “look out” in the silent video.
Police and town officials said Keena, who had long been a dedicated and hard-working town employee, including at the transfer station before joining the public works crew, was frustrated at the amount collected and sent a photo to Donahue, a longtime friend. He in turn then shared the photograph on Facebook, and it was shared by many others from there across a number of social media platforms.
“The post itself was the most damaging part of the whole thing. It was full of inaccuracies and unfortunately Chris did not reach out as he normally would and has so many times in the past, and by the time information got out there, it wasn’t correct,” Chesebrough said.
In interviews with public works staff, which were done cooperatively with employees while a union representative was present, police and town officials said it was determined that the syringes displayed were all collected during a deep clean of the park — due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of large public downtown events, the last previously extensive cleanup of the park hadn’t occurred in over a year, multiple officials said Wednesday — and that all were properly disposed of following the picture being taken.
Oliverio and Keena both admitted to a lapse in judgment, Chesebrough said Wednesday, and took full responsibility for their role in the matter. She said both have not only shown remorse for the chaos, but were instrumental in helping the town to quickly implement a new system in which any syringe is immediately photographed, isolated and brought to the police department for disposal.
The new policy applies to all public grounds, not just at Donahue Park.
“Given everything, there isn’t a specific policy or behavioral issue that would justify further disciplinary action,” Chesebrough said. “Both employees have shown extreme concern and I am confident they have learned from this.”
Oliverio was the first to come across a syringe, and Chesebrough said department leadership reported that he conducted himself in a professional manner using the new policy “to the letter” and helped to immediately address the issue.
Moving forward, both Chesebrough and police said this week that the focus now returns to addressing the underlying causes in an effort to prevent the syringes from ever making their way to the park in the first place.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in the last year, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Chesebrough said.
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