A former Massachusetts police officer has pleaded guilty to assaulting a man during an arrest, nearly two years after resigning from his position.
Justin Chappell, 43, formerly of the Weymouth Police Department, responded to a home in July 2022 after receiving reports of an intoxicated man causing a disturbance.
Bodycam footage released last year shows Chappell approaching the man, identified as Donald McAdam, and ordering him to take his hands out of his pockets. When McAdam refuses, Chappell hits him several times in the knees with a baton.
Other officers arrive and handcuff the man. McAdam resists his efforts to place him in a squad car and hurls racial slurs before Chappell begins punching him repeatedly.
In a corresponding police report, Chappell alleged that he was “physically assaulted” and “spat upon” before “applying four to five closed-fist distraction techniques” to the top of McAdam’s head.
Justin Chappell, 43, pleaded guilty to assaulting a man during an arrest in July 2022. The former Weymouth police officer resigned before his dismissal hearing
Bodycam footage released last year shows Chappell repeatedly punching a man identified as Donald McAdam in the head after the man resists arrest.
“My intention was to apply sufficient intensity to those techniques to achieve compliance,” Chappell wrote in the report.
The former officer had also been accused of using excessive force during an arrest in February 2022, for which he received a one-day suspension.
Chappell “delivered two blows” to the suspect’s head “with a closed fist,” according to a police report.
The former police officer resigned on July 11, just over a week after the incident and before he appeared at a termination hearing.
“My experiences, careers and deployments prior to becoming a police officer have proven difficult to balance in law enforcement at this time,” Chappell wrote in his resignation notice.
Weymouth Police Chief Richard Fuller officially requested Chappell’s decertification in October, attempting to prevent him from becoming an officer anywhere else in the state.
In a news release last month, the Massachusetts District Attorney’s Office accused Chappell of striking McAdams “approximately 13 times with a closed fist without legal justification.”
“The punches caused obvious pain and visible injuries to the man’s head,” the office wrote.
McAdams appeared battered in his mugshot, with swelling above his right eyebrow and a trail of blood on the bridge of his nose.
In a corresponding police report, Chappell alleged that McAdam “physically assaulted” him and “spat on him.”
The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission voted to revoke Chappell’s certification as a police officer in January.
In May of last year, the Weymouth Police Department submitted a report to the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, along with a recommendation that Chappell be decertified.
The commission voted in January to revoke his certification as a police officer.
Three months later, the 43-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of deprivation of rights under color of law in federal court.
The charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years behind bars, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
“He certainly regrets losing his composure,” Chappell’s attorney, Ken Anderson, said outside court. “There is no doubt about what he did that day and he came to accept responsibility.”
The sentencing is scheduled for July 16.
Before becoming an officer, Chappell served in the US Army. He he toured Afghanistan in 2006, 2007 and 2009, according to a now-deleted post on the Weymouth Police Department’s Facebook page.
Chappell also worked as a security contractor in Iraq before attending the police academy.
