Uncertainty Looms as Fall River Police Chief Kelly Furtado’s Contract Ends in May

Fall River Police Chief Kelly Furtado’s contract is up in less than three months and there doesn’t seem to be a process in place to select a new chief. I’m hearing Mayor Coogan is quietly reaching out to City Councilors behind the scenes to see if he can get the five votes needed to give Furtado another year. I hear he doesn’t have the votes.

How did we get here?

The Fall River City Council voted 5-4 on May 13, 2025, to appoint Interim Police Chief Kelly Furtado as the permanent chief of the Fall River Police Department, following a request from Mayor Paul Coogan. This was after the police union ousted her predecessor Paul Galvin through a no-confidence vote. This made Furtado the first female police chief in the city’s history, with a one-year contract increasing her salary from an estimated $155,000 to $190,000 (as interim) to $215,000 as chief. Concurrently as part of a deal, the council approved a home rule petition to transition the police chief position to civil service status which was approved by the state legislator and signed by Governor Maura Healey on Jan 29, 2026.

When I talked to Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan in late February, he wasn’t sure if Chief Furtado would be nominated or if he would nominate a replacement. It seems odd that the official process hasn’t started yet. Now that the position is civil service, the qualification and process will be different this time around. Also, Chief Furtado doesn’t qualify for civil service requirements that cities like New Bedford put in place due to her lack of a college degree.

Fall River’s Police Chief Retention Problem

Fall River has had a problem retaining police chiefs and has had five chiefs in the past decade.

• Daniel Racine (served until retirement in 2017)
• Albert Dupere (sworn in December 2017, resigned in 2020 amid drinking-on-duty allegations)
• Jeffrey Cardoza (appointed June 2020, served until retirement in early 2022 after going on leave in late 2021)
• Paul Gauvin (interim starting December 2021, formalized May 2022, stepped down/demoted September 2024, formally terminated/fired April 2025)
• Kelly Furtado (appointed interim October 2024, confirmed permanent May 2025).

The retention problem stems from internal factions from within the FRPD. I’ve been told Games of Thrones is an excellent way to describe how FRPD chiefs have been taken down.

No sense of urgency or transparency

Mayor Coogan seems either unconcerned, unprepared to address the chief’s looming contract or is simply avoiding transparency regarding his plans to address Furtado’s contract. With less than three months left on her contract, we don’t seem to know the answers to some basic questions:

• Does Chief Furtado want to stay on? Will she even qualify for Fall River’s civil service standard?
• Does Mayor Coogan plan on nominating Chief Furtado? If not, will he search for a new chief from within the FRPD or do what New Bedford recently did and open the process outside the FRPD?

Hopefully, we get some answers soon. The rank and file FRPD officers work hard to keep residents safe and deserve stability in leadership and the most qualified person available as their new chief. If that’s Furtado, so be it. The city council deserves to have a say in the process. The residents of Fall River deserve transparency and feel that the selection process is the best one.