Fall River Police Union President Alleged 2024 crime data falsely dropped due to tracking changes

Ten months into 2025 and after our first fact, Fall River’s 2024 crime data is now easily accessible to the public on the Fall River Police Department’s website.

The data shows mixed results.

The bad? Rapes, robberies, property damage, burglaries, and larcenies are up – rapes up 25%. The good? Violent crime, aggravated assaults are down big time. But are violent crimes really down 24%? Was total crime in Fall River down 0.86% in 2024? Not according to the rank and file members of the police and union head Jonathan Ferrera, who claimed crime is rising in a report published earlier this year.

Last year in Fall River, there was a battle for police chief and the union voted no confidence in Chief Paul Gauvin who agreed to step down. Mayor Coogan, City Administrator Seth Atkin (who has since resigned) and the director of Human Resources Nick Macolini picked Kelly Furtado to be the next interim chief. Almost immediately, Chief Furtado launched an investigation into Gauvin, the City of Fall River hired an investigator who produced a long report that came out early in 2025 that resulted in Gauvin being fired. Gauvin is currently in hearings for his unemployment benefits (which the city has denied him) and another hearing to get his job back. There is a good chance Gauvin gets back pay and goes back to work at the FRPD.

What I found interesting in the investigation report is on page 51, paragraphs 123 and 124, the FRPD union President Jonathan Ferreira alleges, “misrepresentation of dropping crime statistics in Fall River” and “that the system Fall River used for tracking crime statistics changed in 2024. He stated that the change in the tracking system meant that crime falsely appeared to have dropped. Officer Ferreira stated that former Chief Gauvin began taking public credit for the drop in crime, crediting his leadership rather than the new system for counting crime. Officer Ferrera called Former Chief Gauvin’s statements “dangerous” for officers, because officers believed the rate of violent crime was actually increasing in Fall River.“

Here’s a screen grab from the report:

One of the reasons the head of the FRPD Union states he held a no confidence vote against Gauvin was because he believed crime data was being misrepresented and that officers believed crime was actually increasing in 2024. Can we trust a report that states violent crime is down 24% in 2024 if changes were made that the Union President claims crime stats in Fall River have “falsely appeared to have dropped” and “officers believed the rate of violent crime was actually increasing”?

I talked to Mayor Paul Coogan who stated he was made aware by former Chief Gauvin of changes being made to the crime reporting in 2024 but didn’t know exactly what changes were after they talked.

As policy, FRPD Chief Kelly Furtado does not allow their public information officers to respond to Fall River Reporter inquiries, so I have put in an official FOIA request to find out exactly how the data changed in 2024 and if there are any changes made in 2025.

I’ll come back and report what I find out.