Trespassing charges create ‘dragnet’ in Holyoke, public defenders say – The Shoestring

HOLYOKE — When Osvaldo Soto-Berrios came to visit one February morning, he was on his mother-in-law’s porch on Appleton Street when two police officers climbed the steps and quickly arrested him and two others for trespassing.

Police alleged that Soto-Berrios had no “legitimate reason” to be in the apartment building. But that was a surprise to Soto-Berrios, who often stops by to help with household chores. His mother-in-law has a foot injury that makes it difficult for her to move around the 40-unit apartment building, he told The Shoestring, and that day he was taking out the trash for her.

“I don’t have a key to the front, so I have to go through the back,” Soto-Berrios said in Spanish before a June court appearance. “I don’t want to be seen as a bad person because I go there to do a favor.”

His attorney, public defender Alex Weinstein, said the charges lacked the factual information needed to prove that Soto-Berrios had “no right” to be in the apartment. Arguing that the case should be dismissed before a Holyoke District Court judge, Weinstein pointed out that most of the Holyoke police report on the incident described the “pursuit, search and arrest of an unrelated individual” and mentioned Soto-Berrios only three times.

On June 10, Judge William Hadley denied Weinstein’s motion, which would have moved the case closer to trial, where prosecutors would have had to provide a higher standard of proof to support their allegations. Weinstein asked the judge to reconsider his decision, but on July 29, before Hadley could rule on that request, the prosecution dropped the charges against Soto-Berrios.

The case of Sotto-Berrios is not unique.

It’s a consistent pattern in Holyoke District Court, according to data obtained by The Shoestring and interviews with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the organization that represents Massachusetts clients who can’t afford their own attorneys. Public defenders like Kate Murdock, the attorney in charge of CPCS’s Holyoke office, say many of their clients are being hit with arrests for trespassing and other misdemeanor charges, leading to “surprising and problematic outcomes.”

In a phone interview, Murdock said she’s seen Holyoke police charge a wide range of people with trespassing, from people who have never been arrested before to people currently on probation. She said this is particularly true in certain buildings that “seem to be policed ​​on a regular basis” — places that landlords, residents or police have identified as central locations for drug-related activity in the city.

Even if the charges are later dropped, the experience can be “pretty traumatizing,” creating a stigma and remaining permanently on a person’s record when applying for a job, she said. Even being arrested can be a violation for people on probation from prison.

“I don’t think trespassing is a serious crime, but it just creates more police presence and interaction, which can have serious consequences for people,” Murdock said.

Speaking in court, Soto-Berrios said he felt good about the trespassing charges being dropped. However, he said police should never have pressed charges against him in the first place. He was arrested and faced charges for months, and attended multiple court hearings before prosecutors decided to drop the case.

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Soto-Berrios’ mother-in-law lives in one of the many buildings that police and the media have identified over the years as drug-selling hot spots. They’re all in the city’s predominantly Hispanic, poorer neighborhoods. For at least a decade, the same story has played out over and over again: residents complain about drug activity in the neighborhood, police make major arrests in those buildings, and the cycle repeats.

In 2015, WAMC reported that then-Police Chief James Neiswanger called the owners of those buildings “slumlords” after police arrested 21 people on drug charges at 365 Appleton St. — the same building where Soto-Berrios was arrested. Last year, police raided the building again and made three arrests on drug charges, 22 News reported.

Mayor Joshua Garcia declined an interview with The Shoestring for this article. Interim Police Chief Isaias Cruz did not respond to an interview request.

In 2022, Garcia, the first Latino ever elected mayor of Holyoke, a city where more than half of the residents identify as Hispanic, held a press conference at another Elm Street hot spot, promising to reduce drug crime in the area.

“If you’re suffering from the disease of addiction, we’re here to help you,” Garcia said at the time. “Because Holyoke is a community of compassion and second chances. If you’re caught up in gangs and drug dealing and you want to get out, we’re here to help you, because Holyoke is a city of hope and opportunity. But if you’re dealing drugs and you’re destroying lives and destroying our neighborhoods, we’re coming for you.”

But drug arrests aren’t the only ones police make at these buildings. There are several “No Trespassing” signs posted outside and inside these apartment complexes, and public documents show police regularly arrest people they believe don’t belong there.

Using public records requests, The Shoestring obtained data on the number of trespassing arrests since 2020 at three different hotspot buildings in Holyoke: 294 Elm St., 365 Appleton St. and 145 Essex St. The data shows a high number of trespassing arrests at those locations — a total of 201 from Jan. 1, 2020, through June 17, 2024.

Murdock said her firm represents many clients who have been arrested for “simply being in a building,” whether they were staying with family, visiting a friend or just passing through. While police officers have the legal authority to stop people and question their whereabouts, Murdock said that can lead to a wide “dragnet” of lawsuits.

“These kinds of things always hit the most vulnerable,” Murdock said.

Records show the number of arrests has only increased since October of last year, when 29-year-old Selena Santana was wounded by a stray bullet during a shooting at the intersection of Maple and Sargeant streets, just a mile from Appleton Street. Her unborn baby died.

In response, Garcia proposed the “Ezekiel Plan,” which would have funneled an additional $1 million into the police department, largely to hire 13 more officers and install a citywide camera system. Although the City Council vetoed the proposal, Garcia and his police department nevertheless increased police patrols and home inspections. In December, The Republican reported that the police department had largely increased enforcement in Holyoke’s historically poorer neighborhoods. Many of the arrests the police made were on simple drug possession charges, the newspaper reported.

In July, the Daily Hampshire Gazette quoted Garcia as saying that Holyoke police have made “more than 200 arrests for criminal activity such as drug trafficking and weapons possession” in the past seven months. It is unclear whether those arrests included violations of the law and how many of them were for less serious drug possession charges.

According to police records, between Jan. 1, 2020, and Oct. 4, 2023, when Santana was shot, officers made 137 trespassing arrests at the three hot spots The Shoestring investigated. That’s three arrests per month over a 45-month period. Between Oct. 4, 2023, and June 17, 2024, police made 64 arrests — nearly seven per month.

In the vast majority of these cases, however, police found no evidence of drug distribution or trafficking. Arrest records show that of the 64 trespassing arrests made at those three locations since the October shooting, police have charged only three of those people with drug distribution or trafficking of any kind. By comparison, police have charged 25 of those 64 people with drug possession, but none with drug trafficking.

Moreover, the extra security measures do not appear to have curbed drug use in the area.

Soto-Berrios’ ex-wife, Iris Campos, whose mother Soto-Berrios was visiting when he was arrested, said the building is “not safe.” And it’s not just because of the drug dealing, she said. The increased police presence keeps Campos from visiting her mother. She said she often gets fined for being on the premises, and the cost prevents her from buying necessities for her family.

“I’m worried about not being able to go to my mom’s house because I don’t want them to think I’m doing drugs when I’m actually there with my kids,” Campos said.

Officer Melissa Rex was patrolling Appleton Street on Feb. 22 when she wrote in her police report that she saw Soto-Berrios and two other men sitting on the adjacent back porches of the building. She followed one man up the stairs while another officer stood “with” Soto-Berrios, her report said.

The chase is detailed in Rex’s report, but she did not write any description of any interactions with Soto-Berrios. He is not mentioned again until the end of the report, when she and a third officer arrest him and the other men after confirming that none of them live there.

While Soto-Berrios acknowledged the amount of crime in Holyoke, he said he doesn’t like how police are targeting “regular people” with charges and arrests. “Not all the people who go there are looking for drugs,” he said.

“I have nothing against the police, but sometimes they are mean,” Campos added. “They should leave poor people here alone.”

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Murdock said the heavy policing in certain parts of Holyoke has led to “community distrust” of police and has other consequences for people’s lives. She said it is common for people to try to avoid contact with police at all costs.

“When people come into contact with the police, they become nervous, uncomfortable and don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “They know that this person has all this authority that they don’t have and they don’t know how things are going to turn out for them.”

Murdock said there is a lot of pressure on leaders in Holyoke to focus on substance abuse issues. “That’s something the mayor has a lot of pressure on,” she said. But using heavy policing as a solution has negative consequences for neighborhoods that have been designated as hot spots.

“I think if people thought about that, what it’s like to have police on the streets all the time, they would see that it’s not a nice way to live,” she added. “It’s a burden on the people who live there.”

That’s certainly how Soto-Berrios feels. He told The Shoestring that he believes the city’s police department should prioritize things that are “much more meaningful.”

“Because they’re out there beating up the people who are picking up cans or asking for money at the traffic light,” he said. “And the people who are actually selling drugs, the people who are really doing bad things, they don’t bother with them.”

Additional reporting by Story Young and Dusty Christensen.

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