Karen Read filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police Department, alleging that two officers involved in investigating her after her boyfriend’s death had exchanged racist and misogynistic messages for years.
Michael Proctor, formerly an officer with the Massachusetts State Police, and Sean Goode, until recently a sergeant with the Canton Police Department, repeatedly used slurs to refer to Black people, women, Asians, Latinos, Jews and others, the lawsuit alleges.
The audio and text messages reveal a “culture of bigotry” and “institutional rot” at both agencies, the suit says, and accuses them of negligence in their hiring, training and supervision practices. Read is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Last year, Read was found not guilty of murdering her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in her second trial (the first ended with a deadlocked jury). The case became a cause célèbre: for Read’s pink-clad supporters who assembled each day outside the courthouse, she was the victim of an extensive cover-up, while prosecutors maintained that a drunken Read had hit O’Keefe with her car in January 2022 and left him in the snow to die.
Proctor, the lead investigator in the case, was fired from the state police in 2025 over alleged misconduct that included crude and sexist text messages about Read.
Goode, a longtime officer in Canton, resigned from the town’s police force on Tuesday after being put on administrative leave last year, according to media reports.
The Massachusetts State Police condemned the alleged comments detailed in Thursday’s lawsuit by Read. In a statement, Col. Geoffrey Noble called the messages “abhorrent” and “entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency.”
Such comments do “not reflect the values of the Massachusetts State Police and are not tolerated within our ranks,” Noble said. “They underscore and fully support my decision to terminate Michael Proctor.”
A lawyer representing Proctor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s lawsuit by Read, but told NBC Boston that whatever “Mr. Proctor did or said in his personal life … had no bearing whatsoever on the investigation of Karen Read.” Goode could not immediately be reached for comment.
Thursday’s lawsuit cites dozens of alleged messages between Proctor and Goode where they repeatedly refer to Black people using the n-word and women using the c-word, among other racist and antisemitic comments.
At one point, the suit says, Proctor told Goode about a multi-vehicle crash in Canton. “Actually, take your time, I saw a n—– was involved, so I wouldn’t rush if you’re working. Let them die,” Proctor allegedly wrote.
Proctor also allegedly told Goode that “Hitler was really on to something” before the United States “had to step in and ruin it.”
Goode allegedly referred to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu as a “little c—” and called Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, a “terrible c–ty Jew.”
Canton Chief of Police Michael Daniels declined to comment, saying the matter was the subject of ongoing litigation. The Town of Canton also did not comment directly on the lawsuit. It issued a statement saying it had “utmost confidence” in Daniels, who became chief in February. “We would refute any broad stroke characterizations about the brave and dedicated men and women who serve in the Department,” the town added.
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