Massachusetts town officials have ruled that they do not have the authority or grounds to fire a police officer who kept a photo of Adolf Hitler in his locker for two decades, purportedly as a joke mocking a fellow cop sporting a distinct haircut and mustache.
In a statement, the chair of the Williamstown Select Board, Andrew Hogeland, said that even if the board had the authority to oust Officer Craig Eichhammer, a 31-year veteran of the department, the termination might not hold because other town officials do not see strong enough grounds for firing, The Berkshire Eagle reported.
Civil rights groups, including the local chapter of the NAACP, have called for Eichhammer's termination over the photo of the Nazi dictator.
While the panel cannot fire Eichhammer, it said it found the photo highly offensive and the demands to fire the officer are valid.
Williamstown, Massachusetts, town officials said they do not have the authority or the grounds to fire Officer Craig Eichhammer for keeping this photo of Hitler in his locker for 20 years
Last month, groups like the Berkshire County branch of the NAACP and the Lawyers´ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law both condemned the Eichhammer's actions and called for his termination, the newspaper said.
'We believe that there is a long standing culture of indifference, at the very least, and racism at its worst in within the department that both the select board and the town manager have chosen to ignore, as well as past police chiefs,' said Joel Priest, co-chair of Berkshire NAACP's race relations committee.
'We see the posting by Eichhammer of the poster of Hitler in his station locker for 20 years as something that is the tip of the iceberg of a pattern of racist behavior amongst the department.'
The groups said the officer's decision to pin a photo of Hitler in the town's police station mimicked actions by hate groups and spread anti-Semitic rhetoric and views.
Eichhammer has said he hung the photo to make fun of a former fellow officer, Peter Moser, who he said resembled the Nazi dictator and was nicknamed 'Little Adolph.'
According to a statement Eichhamer gave last year, Moser, who left the force back in 2000, 'was fine' with the reference to Hitler 'and would just laugh it off,' reported The Williams Record.
'Myself being of German ancestry and having living and deceased relatives with the first name Adolph, I also thought it was funny,' Eichhammer wrote in August 2020.
A group photo dated Autumn 1990 that was shared by the Williamstown Police Department in May 2020 purported to show officers Moser and Eichhammer posing in their uniforms with their colleagues in front of the police headquarters.
The black-and-white image of the ruthless Nazi leader hung in Eichhammer's locker - above an autographed photo of Britney Spears and beside a bikini snapshot of an unknown woman - from 1999 to 2019, when it was destroyed during the police department's move to a new building.
Eicchammer insisted that the photo was nothing more than a private joke among cops.
Eichhammer has said he hung the photo to make fun of a former fellow officer, Peter Moser, who he said resembled the Nazi dictator and was nicknamed 'Little Adolph.' This 1990 group photo that was shared by the police department last year purports to show Moser standing fourth from the right in the front row (circled in red)
'I had no ideologies of Nazi Germany, swastikas or anything terrible that happened during WW2,' he wrote. 'Again the photo was simply just to get a laugh out of the likeness of Moser.'
Hogeland, the town official, said the board's power is limited in these circumstances. In the past, the board has only had the authority to fire town managers and police chiefs
'We understand, and agree, that an officer having a photo of Hitler in a police locker is unacceptable and is highly offensive to the community,' Hogeland said. 'The officer´s does not excuse his actions in posting the photo or keeping it in his locker. We condemn it.'
In 2004, Eicchammer was awarded the Medal of Valor for exhibiting restraint toward a mentally disturbed burglary suspect.
In 2011, the officer was disciplined for sexual aggression toward a woman but was allowed to keep his job.
