Report: Under former chief, Wolfeboro PD was fractured, hostile workplace

WOLFEBORO — The police department was caught in the middle of two different fractures, and led by a chief who created a hostile workplace through use of misogynistic and homophobic language, who discussed his sex life in front of subordinates, and frequently posted offensive content to social media, according to an independent review requested by the town.

A redacted version of the investigation report, completed by the Plymouth-based firm Municipal Resources, Inc., was released to The Laconia Daily Sun.

The report was triggered by a whistleblower within the department, who complained of behaviors of then-Chief Dean Rondeau. Rondeau was placed on leave in February of this year, and retired in April, while the investigation was still ongoing.

Paul Monzione, an attorney who represented Rondeau during the investigation, said his client has been fully cooperative during the review, Rondeau wants the town to have a thorough investigation, and his decision to retire was something he was contemplating well before the review began.

Rondeau interviewed as part of the investigation. The report explains his view, which is the behavior he exhibited as chief, which several subordinates in the report described as “offensive” or “inappropriate,” were instances of “joking” or other examples of a workplace culture he said had been in place for years.

Fractured department

Several members of the department interviewed reported a “divide” between the command staff — Rondeau and his captain — and the rest of the department. The divide was primarily over police details, such as traffic control for community events or road construction, for which officers can earn extra income. However, one department member described a practice by Rondeau and the captain of taking those shifts themselves before patrol officers had a chance to accept them.

Friction between administration and subordinate staff then led to a vertical fissure within the department, as the union made an attempt to draft a letter of no confidence in the chief. That effort resulted in a deadlock, though, which then split the rank-and-file members into two camps: those who were for and against the no-confidence letter.

The toxic atmosphere revealed itself in two specific ways through the interviews. The first triggered an internal investigation conducted by the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, related to an incident in which an officer called in sick, and the captain picked up the shift. While on the shift, the captain responded to an untimely death scene, and when he texted other department members for backup, not a single one responded to the call for help.

The second revelation about the work environment came from an interview with a part-time officer who said he tried to leave the department, only to have Rondeau and the captain beg him to stay. The officer said he only remained because they agreed to a list of requests, including allowing him to serve as a school resource officer, raising his pay, allowing him to pick his shifts, and allowing him to work without having to wear his uniform.

The officer said that since those agreements were made, he makes the effort to spend as little time within the police department building as possible.

“It’s a cesspool in hell in there,” the report quotes the officer as saying. When asked to explain, he said, “so toxic, so much hatred, you can’t trust a soul, and I really want no part of it.”

The report notes the special treatment given the officer by Rondeau furthered feelings of “discontent” within the department, as other officers didn’t enjoy such privileges.

Hostile environment

Nearly all those interviewed for the report corroborated allegations of Rondeau’s behavior as grossly inappropriate for his position.

The department has gender-specific restrooms, but Rondeau was known to frequently choose the women’s room to relieve himself, even when the men’s room was available.

Multiple interviewees reported hearing Rondeau exclaim, loud enough so those in the room near could hear, that the water in the toilet was “cold and deep.”

One of those interviewees, a female member of the department, said she interpreted the comment as a joke about his genital size. “He thinks he’s hilarious,” she said. The same member said Rondeau would enter the dispatch center and say he had gone to “headboard heaven,” referring to sex, the night before.

Another female employee said she would be bothered when Rondeau would greet a room of mixed genders by saying only, “Good evening gentlemen,” and she found it “disgusting” and “gross” when he would talk about his own recent sexual experiences.

Another department member, a male, said Rondeau often made remarks about women that “made me turn my head,” such as comments about a woman’s attractiveness, or specifically about the size of her breasts.

Others said they heard him speak in a derogatory manner about people who are LGBTQ+, sometimes referring to males who are gay as “fagmires.”

Rondeau was also known to use Facebook to share posts disparaging people who are gay or, more commonly, are transgender. Attached to the report were several such screenshots, including many posts critical of the Bud Light campaign that employed a spokesperson who is trans, or criticizing the inclusion of people who are trans in athletics.

The postings were described as “embarrassing” and “unprofessional” by nearly all interviewees. More than one were driven to confront Rondeau — their boss — about it, and asked him to stop.

One department member told the interviewer, “It’s wrong; we’re public figures; he’s the chief of police... it makes the PD look bad.”

That employee also described how he took the unusual step of creating an anonymous email account, and drafted an email to a media outlet about issues at the department, but never hit “send.” He said he transferred control of the email to another department member, but didn’t believe the other department member took any action, either.

Rondeau’s interview

In his interview, Rondeau explained that during most of his military experience — his LinkedIn page lists a U.S. Army career starting in 1981 — that homosexuality was considered unethical and a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, though that has been changed.

Rondeau confirmed many of the complaints about his use of social media, and about his behavior within the workplace.

He said he thought the Facebook posts he shared were “hysterical,” and that he felt “entitled to have an opinion” when using his personal social media account.

“Just because I’m chief of police doesn’t mean I give up my First Amendment rights to kind of poke fun at what’s going on. A lot of that stuff is satirical.”

He said the posts were intended as jokes and to comment on the “slippery slope we’re going down,” particularly regarding people who are trans competing in sports.

Rondeau confirmed he has referred to men who are gay as “fagmire,” and when asked about his use of the women’s bathroom, he said, “We all do.” He said his comment about the water being “deep and cold” was meant as a joke for the benefit of male officers, and he denied female subordinates would take offense, stating he knows his staff well.

He responded it was “common” to comment about a woman’s body when asked about allegations he had done so. “They would also do this,” the report quotes Rondeau as saying of other members of the department.

He had a similar view of his “headboard heaven” comments, that it was a “common joke” in line with the “jocularity” of department culture.

“It sounds like they’re picking on every bad thing I’ve done in 27 years, but they would often join in; they would join in the conversation. In fact, they would get it going, they would instigate it,” Rondeau said. He explained he felt the context was significant, and he would have stopped the banter if it were mean-spirited.

Asked to comment on the review, Monzione, Rondeau’s attorney, said, “Former Chief Rondeau has been very cooperative, everything I see about him is, I see he wants to make sure the investigation is thoroughly conducted, and that the town has an opportunity to make a determination.”

Monzione said Rondeau was “at the stage of his career,” where he was already contemplating his retirement prior to the investigation, and that timing his retirement as he did made it easier for the town to move forward.

He said Rondeau has been taking the report, including what his subordinates said, seriously and with an open mind.

“We all have our own opinions about, I guess what has been reported regarding Dean when he was chief. I think Dean is fully aware of how people view these things that have been reported,” Monzione said. “I don’t think that he’s been smug about it. I think he has really given it a lot of thought, and he has candidly admitted that he could have acted better.

"He has not in any way taken a position where he would claim that he’s been victimized by some of what has been reported about it. In fact, he has been the first to admit that he could have done things better and not used some of the language that has been reported. So my feeling about Dean is that he has sat back and taken a good hard look at this and he has always expressed a willingness to be better.”