By Lance Reynolds
Boston Herald
WEST BOYLSTON, Mass. — A showdown over a Trump flag has erupted in a small Worcester County town as a police chief says he won’t report back to work under a town administrator who demanded the banner be removed.
West Boylston Police Chief Dennis Minnich Sr . is demanding the Select Board to take action in light of Town Administrator James Ryan’s actions which have led to a vote of no confidence from the police union.
Ryan is less than a month into his role of leading the town of roughly 7,800 people, on the border of Worcester.
“If that was a Biden flag, would he have said anything?” Minnich told the Herald. “I have been cranked up ever since. I’ve slept like two hours a night. I’m going after him and I want him fired. I want him out of here.
“I have taken all of my vacation time, personal days, and I told the town board that I will not be back until either he’s gone or you get rid of me. And if you get rid of me, I’m not going quiet, and you’re paying,” he added.
Minnich, a 32-year veteran of the 13-officer department, revealed he put himself on leave earlier this month in a phone interview with the Herald Friday afternoon. The call came after a letter he sent to the Select Board on Feb. 4 started to circulate on social media late Thursday night.
The Select Board is set to meet in executive session Tuesday night to discuss the “formal complaint” Minnich filed against Ryan in his letter which detailed the town administrator’s “highly unprofessional and deeply alarming” actions.
“I’ve been a cop too long,” Minnich told the Herald. “I love my job. I live in town. I have a wife and five kids who were raised here and a farm in town. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ryan started as town administrator, a position that carries a salary of $208,000, on Jan. 21 and began meeting with department heads and visiting municipal buildings.
A day after Minnich gave Ryan a walkthrough of the police station, the police chief said he received a call from the town administrator requiring that a President Trump flag be taken down from a wall inside the department’s gym.
Minnich said he “reluctantly complied” after telling Ryan that he “did not see any harm or lawful violation to hang a flag of the sitting President of the United States.” The chief removed the flag in front of one of his officers, sending a photo to the town administrator as confirmation.
Ryan had reportedly argued that hanging the Trump flag inside the station was a “civil rights violation.” Minnich said a town attorney had told him the department had the freedom to hang the flags.
Tension escalated when Ryan called Minnich on Feb. 3 saying he received photos of inside the station and that he had confirmation that the flag had never been taken down, the police chief wrote in his letter to the Select Board.
The town administrator said he had photos of both the gym and men’s locker room showing Trump flags being displayed, accusing Minnich of being a liar and “questioning” the chief’s “integrity.”
Minnich said all of this came as a surprise and mounted to “serious concerns,” not knowing who had taken the photographs and that two Trump flags had gone up after the initial incident. He said Ryan ordered him to retrieve the banners and bring them to his office at Town Hall .
Shortly after, Minnich said he received a phone call from the town facilities director who “apologized” for entering the police station to take photos of areas restricted to the public without the police chief knowing, at Ryan’s order.
“The director admitted he felt it was inappropriate but also felt pressured to do this because (Ryan) was his boss,” Minnich wrote in his letter.
Ryan and the Select Board did not respond to Herald requests for comment on Friday.
Minnich, police chief since 1997, told the Herald he’s never confronted a situation like this other than getting into some “ballgames” with the Board of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic over enforcing people to wear “nonsensical masks.”
“I’m not a political guy at all,” Minnich said. “I totally support the president, Vice President Vance, and people know how I feel. But I don’t run around town going ‘How could you vote for Kamala Harris?’ I’m just a Republican.”
“For some reason, this guy, I don’t know if he had heard about me or just didn’t like it,” the police chief said of the town administrator. “It seemed to me like he took a beeline right for my jugular and was trying to topple me.”
In its vote of no confidence, the police union said members “will unify and work towards the restitution of the trust placed in the Town Administrator’s office and continue to work collaboratively to accomplish the common goals that provide the highest and best service to the citizens of West Boylston.”
Looking back, Minnich said he would not have taken the initial Trump flag down and stood his ground.
“It’s not a civil rights violation,” he said. “If nothing else, he’s violating the guys’ First Amendment rights and mine too to say ‘Take it down.’ We’ll see where this goes.”
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