FRANCIS J. GAULIN
WESTFIELD – Westfield Police Chief John Camerota will lead a delegation to Plymouth Thursday where three city officers will be honored by the Massachusetts Police Association at their annual convention.
The delegation will number more than 20 persons and will include city officers James Renaudette and Francis Gaulin and their wives. The two officers will each be presented with a Medal of Valor in recognition of their service in April when Gaulin was stabbed and Renaudette was obliged to shoot and kill his assailant.
In addition, Kara Torres and her sons, Jay and Christopher, will also attend the luncheon awards ceremony where Kara will accept a posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to her husband, veteran city officer Jose Torres.
Camerota said that the MPA is an advocacy group for the Commonwealth’s police officers and said that almost all of the city’s officers are members. The officers are represented at the three-day convention by delegates selected from the membership of the Westfield Police Association, a social, fraternal and political organization open to all officers in the city, both superior officers and patrolmen.
The MPA lobbies the state legislature on issues concerning police officers and supports them in other ways. In addition, “They honor officers who’ve acted above and beyond the call of duty” Camerota said.
Gaulin and Renaudette will be honored by the association in recognition of their response to a domestic disturbance in April on Elm Street when Gaulin was first to arrive at a residence and found a man who had been attempting to gain entry to his former wife’s residence.
At the time, Capt. Michael McCabe said that Gaulin had to use his Taser to take control of the man but the man, Douglas Musto, 27, of Southampton, was not completely incapacitated by the electronic control device and stabbed Gaulin’s leg with the knife he had brandished before Gaulin used his Taser.
JAMES T. RENAUDETTE
Wounded, Gaulin struggled with Musto for control of the knife until Renaudette arrived and stopped Musto by shooting him with his service weapon.
Musto was killed.
McCabe said that the incident was the first time a Westfield officer had ever shot and killed a person.
Hampden County District Attorney Mark G Mastroianni announced in August that he reviewed the incident and has concluded that “the homicide of Douglas Musto was legally justified.”
Renaudette and Gaulin are not the only city officers to be honored by the MPA as the association will recognize Jose Torres by presenting his widow, Kara, a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Torres, a 27-year veteran officer, was killed in July when he was run over by a construction vehicle while working at a construction site.
He was the first Westfield police officer to be killed on duty and his death caused an outpouring of emotion from his colleagues in the police department and his many friends and acquaintances in the city.
His funeral ceremonies drew huge crowds of law enforcement personnel, Gov. Deval Patrick, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield), and thousands of city residents who knew Torres in some way, from childhood friends to those he arrested.
