InFocus with Patrick Berry Featuring: Hampden DA Anthony Gulluni

The 22 News Plus Studio. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's edition of In Focus. I am your host, Patrick Berry. Today, I am very. District Attorney, thank you very much for joining me today. Greatly appreciate it. My pleasure. I feel fortunate to be here as you launch this new program. You have a very busy office, and there's a lot of great things that you and your staff are doing, you know, and I want to kind of jump into into some of the things that that that you're currently working on. First and first and foremost, basically, what does the DA's office do? So the district attorney's office is really responsible for public safety and criminal justice. You know, those two things sort of overlap. But I would say our mission is is focused on community safety, public safety. And there's a lot of ways in which we do that now, as I almost get through 11 full years as the Hamden district attorney. So primarily, we're I've got about 90 assistant district attorneys who are in court each and every day fighting for victims, fighting for justice, fighting for what's right, protecting our communities by enforcing the law. But, you know, as folks I hope have seen over the years, we really do that and, you know, achieve that mission in other ways through prevention and education and a lot of innovative programs. So a lot of ways to skin a cat, but ultimately, it's really public safety. So you said you have 90 ADA's in your office. What is the rest of the staff? Who are the rest of the staff? You have investigators, state police. Who are some of the other folks? Yeah, I've got about 80 other full time employees, plus about 20 Massachusetts state troopers who work in the office. So there's a big infrastructure there. You know, our lawyers are in court every day. And then we have the other staff, as you mentioned, Patrick, and they are support staff folks. We have paralegals, we have victim witness advocates, which is an employee group that really in many ways is sort of the spine and the spirit of what we do there, as their name suggests, communicating directly with victims and witnesses. Their work is often unsung in terms of how important what they do is, especially to individual victims of crime, right, who come into the system unaware of what's ahead of them. They've been hurt, injured somehow, very often completely innocently. And that victim witness advocate is kind of their steward through the process. Is your office that large just because Hamden County is the largest county in Western Mass? Or is there a lot of need for a lot of crime, for lack of a better description, in Hamden County that warrants a staff of that number? Yeah, it's probably both things. You know, we are a busy office. If you accumulate our caseload numbers across the different aspects of the work that we do, we're among the busiest districts in the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We exceed Worcester's numbers. We're really rivaling Middlesex and Suffolk County, which is Boston. What's that measuring? So you say you exceed Worcester's numbers. How do you measure that? Just in terms of cases. So if we accumulate our numbers from the district courts or Superior Court, etc., all the cases coming in that result from arrests and indictments that we're handling through the course of a year. So it does sound like crime in Hamden County seems to be higher than some other areas of the state. Absolutely. When you look at the demographics and the fact that Springfield is the third largest city in the Commonwealth, some of the geographic aspects with the highway systems that we have here, there's a lot of reasons for it. But it's really a bigger population. Hamden County is about 600,000 folks total. So that and some other things lead us to be a very busy place. But it's also safe here. I mean, I don't, you know, based on what you just said, you know, it seems as if crime is higher here, but I feel perfectly safe. I know a lot of people who just feel perfectly safe here. So is that that safety feeling a combination of the work your office is doing and, you know, our local police departments? I'll certainly accept that suggestion, Patrick. Yes, it is. But in reality, perception is reality for a lot of folks. But in reality, it is a safe place. When you look at the numbers of crimes, you look at the concentration of how and why crimes happen. I've lived in Springfield my entire life and I've never been fearful, you know, so my whole family is here. And I get that feedback a lot, thankfully, that that people enjoy this community. People are safe here and they want to raise their kids here. And there's been multi generations who have lived safe, happy lives in Hamden County. You know, it's interesting when you talk about some of the the departments or some of the staff members in your in your department and the things that they tackle. You mentioned domestic violence. You mentioned special victims. There's also a forensic aspect to which I don't think a lot of people understand. There's a forensic aspect to your office. A tremendous aspect of the work we do in investigations and prosecutions has to do with forensic science. You know, when you look in particular at our work on unresolved cases, I have a unit of prosecutors and staff and investigators who focus on case on cases that have been unsolved for a very long time. Many people are probably familiar with our work on the Lisa Ziegert case that we solved a handful of years ago. And that was from the 80s? That was 1992. She was killed in 1992 with the time that I took over the case. It was 25 years old. We solved it about 28 years. Of course, we solved the Danny Crotto murder from the 60s. And so do you have a like a cold case division, a cold case that that's all your this group of people work on? We have an unresolved cases unit and that a handful of employees works exclusively on cases that have been unresolved for a lengthy period of time. Are there cases that that that group is working on now that you can talk about that really just, hey, we got to get this solved? Absolutely. There's a great number of them, unfortunately. Right. There's dozens and dozens of cases that have gone unresolved over the course of years across the county. There's a handful that we're actively working on. We've talked publicly about the Shanna Price case. Shanna was a young woman found murdered in Blount Park in Springfield in the 90s. We communicate with her family. We did some press conferences on that matter. We're applying modern forensic sciences. We're actually using forensic investigative genetic genealogy and asking folks to give us their DNA so that can be a part of a database so we can build family trees and try to get to who killed Shanna. We talk a lot about Holly Perrini and Holly Perrini was killed 30 years ago. Ten-year-old girl up in the eastern part of the county in the Brimfield area. And that's a case that, of course, for a lot of reasons we really want to solve. I mean, the family on a relatively frequent basis. And, you know, it's tragic. And there's a lot of those cases. And it's a big part of our work. And we've been fortunate to have some success. And we're going to keep pounding away until we solve as many cases as possible. And I don't know whether this is a sore subject or not, but there was recently I think his name was Edward Wright, who, I mean, way before your time, wrongly convicted back in the 80s. But that's also part of good justice is making sure people who have been wrongly convicted are set free. Yeah, I'm going to pick apart your question there. A couple of things. I have maintained that Edward Wright was not wrongfully convicted. We fought against his attempts to reverse his conviction over the course of decades in my office before I was district attorney. And we fought it again. He had five bites at the apple. He had an opportunity with the Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court. Everyone found that whatever defects occurred in the trial arguably were not significant enough. And the evidence outweighed the evidence of his guilt, outweighed any suggestions that he was innocent. Finally, another Superior Court judge made a decision with which we continue to disagree. And we just backed away from continuing to prosecute him because 40 years on, we just couldn't piece together a case. But it's my strong belief that Edward Wright was not wrongfully convicted and is not innocent. And I've said that publicly. However, Patrick, the second part of your question is important to mention. Prosecutors and I have a very solemn oath to uphold truth and justice. And that doesn't mean seeking convictions like another lawyer might represent a client where they're sort of representing that individual at all costs, right? Prosecutors have a broader obligation. And when someone is wrongfully convicted and we've had situations where we've dismissed cases where we knew or felt we couldn't prove at least that someone was guilty, that's a big part of what I do. Those are ethical obligations that really serve as the foundation of my work. And that's important. But Edward Wright is not doesn't fall into that category. In my opinion, we are speaking with a district attorney for the Hampton County, Anthony Galuney. We need to take our first break. We'll be right back after this. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. We are back now in the 22 News Plus studio. This is In Focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry. I have with me today Hampton County District Attorney Anthony Galuney talking about what the district attorney's office does and how they keep our community safe. District Attorney, thank you again for being with me. Part of keeping our community safe is really educating the community and you and your office. I don't know whether it's new. Maybe I'm just noticing it more now than I did decades ago. But you seem to be doing a lot of outreach and a lot more outreach than maybe I remember from, you know, 15, 20, 30 years ago. Well, it's a different community. My predecessors probably had different resources and different issues, but it's certainly been something I've sought to make a hallmark of my administration is to be accessible to the community, to be visible in the community, to be transparent, to be communicative. And I think we've done a really good job of that. And a lot of programs we've established kind of maintain that. Things I'm really proud of, I talked at the beginning of this interview, Patrick, about, you know, kind of there's many means to public safety to that end. And we really think prevention education is a big piece of that. You know, there's, you know, Stop the Swerve is just one of the one of the many things that that your office does. There's the Youth Advisory Board. Tell me a little bit about those. Yeah. Stop the Swerve is a singular sort of program that we started in really, you know, the wake of many incidents involving people driving drunk and people driving distracted right now that phones are such a big part of our lives. And young people in particular grow up with phones in their hands. Right. So when they get their licenses at 16 and 17 years old, it's there's this natural sort of instinct to have the phone nearby. So we're really through Stop the Swerve educating young people in particular, high school age kids about the responsibility and privilege it is to have a license and drive a car. And what comes with that, that you have an obligation to your own safety, to those in your car and to people on the roads, to not drive drunk, to not drive while high. Right. Another big emerging issue and to not drive distracted. It's and I said this to my kids when they were learning how to drive. You have to remember you're operating heavy equipment. You know, this is, you know, it seems easy. You're behind the wheel, gas brake, you know, blinker would hopefully blinker. Right. But, you know, it seems easy. But you have to remember, you need to focus. You need to pay attention to not just what you're doing, but, you know, cars pulling out of the side streets, pedestrians, bicyclists, e-bikes that are everywhere now. You know, so the education aspect of those those high school kids of getting behind the wheel is crucial. It's enormous. And our program is so well orchestrated where we'll bring in folks who have been affected by drunk driving or serious accidents. We have a beautiful video. It's about 20 minutes long where we show the implications of these kinds of things. And every time I've gone out, it's dozens and dozens of times now over the last 10 years or so. I'm so surprised, happily surprised that kids are so engaged with this program and they're listening. And we think it really makes a difference. Despite that, we've had 60 or more fatal or near fatal serious motor vehicle accidents in the county this year in 2025. So we're really talking a lot about it, especially as the summer set on, that folks got to be paying attention when driving, to your point, Patrick, never drink and drive, never drive distracted, never drive while high. You carry a huge responsibility when you're behind the wheel. Let's talk a little a little bit about Her Story. That is it's a new or excuse me, Horizon. It's a new program that's coming out for young women. Tell me about it. Yeah, it really builds off the success that we've had with our youth advisory board, which you mentioned a moment ago, youth advisory boards, 60 some odd kids from across the county's high schools every year that come in and work with us. We figure out what's going on in their high schools and social groups, and we equip them to be kind of ambassadors and work on behalf of public safety and doing the right thing. And we really realized there was some space and some unique issues around young girls and young women, unique issues that they face in coming up, especially at that high school age, looking forward at careers and goals. So for a few years, we've worked on something exclusively and specifically for girls and young women. And we came up with Horizon, H-E-R-I-Z-O-N. And we have almost 100 applications into this program for this school year. It's for high school aged girls and young women to come in and chart their own course with the resources and expertise that the Hamden District Attorney's Office brings. And we're really going to focus on, you know, girls and young women surmounting the issues that that they uniquely face, helping other girls and young women get through those issues through education and through support and looking at goal setting and confidence in careers. Right. If we've got strong young people who aspire to lead in this community, we're going to be a better community in the future. And through Horizon, we're going to support a lot of girls and young women to do that. After this rolls out and becomes the success that you hope it will be, what's next? So let's look down the road, maybe a few years. Is there a project that you and your staff are working on to a new project to better communicate and educate the community? Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that we're focused on. You know, we realize that challenges for young people continue to grow and evolve with social media and the things that kids are faced with. We really use the platforms that we have in existence, Patrick, to kind of figure out what the what the emerging issues are for kids. Our youth advisory board has led us to be really ahead of the curve on so many issues. You know, we were talking about vaping seven or eight years ago before. I think a lot of folks knew what it was because kids were coming in saying, hey, there's these kids in the bathroom and there's this weird smoker, smells like strawberries, smells weird. And, you know, we kind of dug into it before anybody was really talking about it. We're talking about stress, where a lot of our young people are dealing with immense amounts of stress to, you know, maintain academic standards and play sports and the social stresses that come with social media and being at high school. So we're talking about stress. I think when a lot of folks were maybe not aware that a 15 year old is under a lot of stress, right? You think about that when you're 40 or 50 years old and money sets in and all those things. So Horizon, I think, is going to chart a course like the youth advisory board did for us to identify and work on serious issues that are confronting our young people. And they're, again, particularly confronting our girls and young women in Hampton County. Well, we need to take our second break. I'm here with District Attorney Anthony Galloni. We'll be right back after this. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Welcome back to today's edition of In Focus, I am with District Attorney Anthony Galloni. We're talking about all the wonderful things that the office of the district attorney does. Mr. Galloni, thank you so very much for joining me today. Greatly appreciate it. Earlier in the show, we we covered really what the office does. Some of the community outreach that you that you and your staff do. There's also one aspect that's really overtaking our community over the course of the last decade or so. I want to say, you know, maybe when you first got into office, you and I had a radio show conversation about the opioid epidemic. Where are we today? Is it better? Is it worse? How has your staff addressed it? Yeah, I mean, that's a multi-part question. I think, you know, what I'll say is we're in a better place than we were 10 years ago. You know, I think back especially to 10 years ago in those first few years where the opiate epidemic really had its advent. You know, it's been present and destructive in communities for decades before that. But really, in the public's consciousness, it really hit 2015, 2016, really when I was just taking office. And there was a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions around what it was about and what it meant and a lot of fear, understandably. And I think one of the things that I set out to do was to disabuse people of this notion that it's a moral failing or it's a result of bad parenting or it's bad people, you know, by choice getting involved in opioids. You know, we've really used the terminology that it's a disease and that it afflicts people in some ways like other diseases that we treat in hospitals, heart disease, diabetes, whatever it might be. So, you know, now you talk with folks and I think that understanding is much more prevalent, right? Especially among people who have had friends or family members who have been stricken by addiction and have overdosed. It's hard for family members to see their loved ones go through that. It's incredibly difficult and it happens in a lot of different ways. Right. And I think there's genetic predispositions towards addiction in all its forms. And we know what happens with prescriptions and things of that nature. And it happens to all different kinds of folks. So one of the things we've done is just like that sort of stigma, breaking down that stigma. I think we've been very successful. I think we've also, you know, stood up a lot of programs. I mean, in particular, the sort of crown jewel of what we do here in law enforcement is called the Hamden County Addiction Task Force, with which we partner with the sheriff's department, originally with Mike Ash, who was still a sheriff when this started. And now it continues very strongly with Sheriff Kochi. And it's a hub. We bring everyone working in this space, recovery, addiction and sobriety together in hospitals, hospitals and police and law enforcement. And you need all those people to come together. Each of those groups you mentioned can't work in silos to accomplish the goals. You all have to come together. Yeah, precisely, Patrick. I mean, you said it really well. I think to tackle this problem and to have some success, we all have to work together across hospital and medical care and law enforcement and the recovery community, working together holistically to make a difference. And educating the families of how this happens. Absolutely. And we did a lot of that work on the front end. You know, we were in high schools and different public spaces for a long time, really talking about what addiction is about and how it starts and giving parents really roadmaps in terms of what to look for. But the Hampton County Addiction Task Force is doing post-overdose outreach. We're working with folks to make sure that organizations have the money to do the work. You know, one of the key programs is that post-overdose outreach, where if someone overdoses and it's not a fatal overdose, of course, within 24 hours, a group, including a police officer, a nurse, someone in recovery, is going to that person's door to say, you almost lost your life by an overdose. How can we help you get sober and be healthy? And hundreds and hundreds of people have been contacted in that situation. And I think it's saving lives. Absolutely. And that's purely a program of HCaT, the work that we do with the Sheriff's Department and many other partners. Now, you mentioned at the start of this portion of the conversation that you think the opioid crisis has gotten better. So and again, from your perspective, are doctors limiting the quantity in their prescriptions? Are people just more educated about it? How what do you or is there one thing that you can pinpoint that says, you know, this is the reason why things have gotten better? Yeah, I think it's a multitude of things. And it's definitely the two things that you mentioned. The education is better. People are understanding it better. I think potential people in the situation to use narcotics or to get a prescription are more mindful of the risk of addiction. And I think the prescribing practices have changed dramatically in the last decade around pain pills and opioids in particular. And a lot of folks I talk to, even if they have a serious dental or other procedure and they're given an opioid, they're not taking it. Right. And they know to keep it away from kids and other people. So I think the education has sunk in. I think the community understands it better. And a lot of things have changed to put us in a better position. And hopefully in maybe another decade, we're talking about this as a problem of the past. You know, it's interesting you talk about the genetic aspect of it. I know I come from a family that has a history of alcoholism. And, you know, I had shoulder surgery a number of years ago and I was given the prescription of 20 odd pills and I did not want to take it because I knew my family history. And that's the education aspect of knowing your family history and knowing, you know, this might not be the right right step. I'll stick with the Advil or the, you know, whatever the Tylenol pills. But going that harder, harder drug route might might not really turn out well. It's a great example. Yeah, exactly. So moving ahead, you know, here we are in 2025. What do you see on the back half of this year that your offices is working on that really wants to kind of check off your plate and say, OK, this is done. You know, you've tackled a couple of cold cases. What's next on the plate? The work is never done. I don't I don't I don't think maybe the day I retire, I'll sort of breathe a sigh of relief. But we're always engaged on that prevention and education space, looking for new ways to impact our community. We're reengaging with schools as the school year starts here in September. Future lawyers of Springfield, which we've we've started and haven't mentioned, is a program really to to give kids opportunities to get to law school and be a part of our justice system. Youth Advisory Board is beginning right about now. Horizon is is really launching and we're hopeful that that will exist for a long time and help girls and young women for years to come. We're working hard on unresolved cases and we're hopeful to have some announcements in the near future in this calendar year and beyond solving cases and bringing justice to families who have waited for it for a very long time. And our work in public safety is is is is really always going. And, you know, when we get to the back side of the summer, you know, in late August, September, now where we are, there is a little bit of a sigh of relief because in the summer we usually see an uptick in violent crime. And, you know, I think we're unofficially out of summer, maybe not officially for a week or two, but it wasn't a terrible summer here in the city and some of our urban areas. So we're we take pride in some of those small successes, but we keep working hard. Well, District Attorney Anthony Galluni, I want to thank you so very much for giving me time. I know you're you and your office are extremely busy. So thank you very much. Hopefully we'll have you back on the program. Look forward to it. Thank you. Thank you.