BEDFORD — Shortly before midnight on Dec. 21, 2015, a gray SUV sped across a parking lot at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital toward a VA police officer, who drew his gun and shouted at the driver to stop.
The vehicle swerved around the officer and took aim at a police lieutenant, who also unholstered his gun and faced down the SUV. The driver, allegedly a veteran and patient at the hospital named George L. Howerton, barreled narrowly past the lieutenant, jumped a curb, and sped off VA property into the night.
The scene was described in VA records obtained by The Sun and interviews.
Howerton, 48, made a clean escape that night and avoided being charged with stealing VA property, worth an estimated $80,000, for six months, even though VA police and the local Office of the Inspector General knew that he was living on the Bedford VA hospital campus after the Dec. 21 incident.
VAPD senior staff ordered officers not to approach, much less arrest Howerton, in what some members of the department believe to be a concerted effort to cover up mistakes made on the case by the OIG.
“You can’t just let people try to run police over and not charge him,” said one officer, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared for his job. “The OIG (agent) knew that if this went to trial his ineptness would show up and he’d be questioned on it.”
Howerton could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Peter Fogg, said his client maintained his innocence.
VA employees interviewed for this article said the 2015 incident is emblematic of a hospital, and federal agency, where mistakes are swept under the rug and wrongdoers are shuffled off to another department.
The Bedford hospital is on its third director in less than a year, and information has been spotty about why the previous two directors, Christine Croteau and Karen Acerra-Williams, were moved to other facilities.
As The Sun reported last year, the hospital and a satellite facility in Lowell were at the center of an OIG investigation into drug dealing by hospital employees, in connection to the overdose deaths of at least two veterans.
The OIG, an independent Massachusetts agency, did not inform the Bedford VAPD of that ongoing investigation, according to VA employees, in part due to mistrust that had built up between the two agencies as a result of the Howerton case.
On that December night in 2015, Howerton left behind the chaotic aftermath of a botched police sting.
While he fled on Springs Road past construction crews and unarmed police officers, who were not notified of the chase, VAPD officers blocked in another gray car and ordered the driver out at gunpoint.
It was a car driven by OIG Special Agent Robert Bosken, who was in charge of the night’s operation.
Bosken did not return a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the hospital said the VA could not answer any questions because the investigation is ongoing.
“Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital follows all policies and procedures for police operations and reporting to ensure all investigations are properly conducted,” Courtney Purswell said in a statement.
The VAPD had been conducting surveillance for several nights on a thief who was stealing electronics, particularly headphones, that had been donated to the hospital by companies like Bose.
Prior to Dec. 21, 2015, all the officers involved in the investigation had met up for a briefing on the plan before beginning surveillance. That didn’t happen the night Howerton escaped, several VAPD officers said.
According to Bosken’s report of the events, written the next day on Dec. 22, he met with two members of the VAPD for a briefing before taking up surveillance positions.
Around 11:30 p.m., the officers observed Howerton enter a room containing donated items and leave with two black duffel bags, Bosken wrote. Instead of arresting him, the OIG agent and officers allowed Howerton to walk across a parking lot and get into a gray SUV.
VAPD officers acknowledged it was a mistake, the first of several that would transpire. They said the surveillance team should have arrested Howerton before he had the chance to get behind the wheel.
“Allowing him to get in the car, he put two officers’ lives in jeopardy,” said a VAPD officer, who asked to remain anonymous.
As Howerton allegedly fled from police, driving at the two VAPD officers, Bosken was unable to work the police lights on his unmarked vehicle and didn’t have a radio to communicate with the VAPD officers, according to documents and interviews.
The only description that responding officers from two different police departments had of the suspect’s car was that it was gray. Bosken’s car was a similar color. His car, instead of Howerton’s, ended up being stopped by officers on the scene at gunpoint.
In the aftermath, members of the VAPD and Bedford Police Department were furious with the lackadaisical planning and execution of the operation, which they told their superiors put officers, and Bosken, in danger.
In his official report, Bosken did not mention that his vehicle was mistaken for Howerton’s or that he was removed at gunpoint. Those details were confirmed by multiple internal records and interviews.
In the hours following the chase, Bosken and a VAPD detective also told the VAPD officers who had drawn their guns not to write reports, in violation of department policy, according to VAPD officers.
The officers involved later did write reports.
Nine days after Howerton eluded the VAPD and OIG, the Lowell Police Department arrested him on a charge of larceny by check.
He was subsequently released because neither the OIG or VAPD had filed a criminal complaint against him.
A complaint and warrant related to the Bedford incident weren’t issued against Howerton until May19, 2016, five months after he fled the hospital campus. When it did come, the complaint was authored by the Bedford Police Department and did not mention that Howerton allegedly tried to drive over two police officers.
Howerton, who has a long criminal record and history of failing to appear in court, was only arraigned on the VA theft charges after the Quincy Police Department arrested him for driving violations in June 2016.
In emails, sent in the months after the chase and obtained by The Sun, VAPD officers were incredulous that neither their department or the OIG were taking any action to apprehend and charge Howerton.
Then, on Feb. 12, 2016, the VAPD officers learned that Howerton was back on the hospital’s campus
“FYI. The individual involved in the voluntary services theft case, George Howerton, is now a resident in Bldg. 5,” VAPD Lt. John Rocca wrote in an email to more than a dozen members of the department. “There will be no attempts made to talk with this induvial (sic) about the open case. Continue patrols of Bldg. 5 and be vigilante (sic).”
Two months later, on April 17, 2016, VAPD responded to a report of another break in at the voluntary services office. A witness identified the suspect as Howerton.
He has already missed several court dates related to the 2015 VA theft charges. His trial is scheduled for later this year.
Follow Todd Feathers on Twitter @ToddFeathers.
