Sgt. Jeff Day has resigned from the Tisbury Police Department. Tisbury town administrator Jay Grande informed The Times of Day’s resignation on Tuesday, and said the sergeant’s last day was May 6.
“His resignation letter was accepted by myself, the town administrator, and the select board,” Tisbury Police Chief Chris Habekost said. Asked if Day gave a reason for his resignation, Habekost said, “He didn’t. He just said he’s resigning.”
Day didn’t immediately respond to a voice message seeking comment.
Day was placed on paid, nondisciplinary, administrative leave on Feb. 18. Grande previously said he was not at liberty to disclose why Day was placed on leave.
Day joined the Tisbury Police Department as a special officer in 2012 after he resigned from the Chilmark Police Department. In 2013, he became a full-time Tisbury Police officer. In 2019, on the recommendation of Tisbury Police Chief Mark Saloio, the Tisbury select board elevated Day to the rank of sergeant. That same year the select board issued Day a letter of commendation for restraint he showed when he and a West Tisbury Police officer squared off against a butcher knife–wielding man who’d allegedly told a dispatcher he would “kill the first police officer that came through the door.” Instead of using lethal force, which Chief Saloio later said would have been justified, Day and West Tisbury Police Lt. Matt Gebo tasered the man.
A portion of Day’s commendation letter stated, “The professionalism, composure, and awareness you displayed during this incident is nothing less than exemplary. You protected yourself, the community, and importantly the person at the center of this incident, suffering from mental illness. Your actions and professionalism in fact saved a life, and you are in line with the best, most noble aspects of our profession.”
Day racked up a number of disciplinary matters at the Tisbury Police Department. Foremost among his alleged department transgressions were allegations of gun theft and untruthfulness that arose following an internal investigation. As The Times previously reported (in an article that also covered Day’s misidentification and arrest of an innocent man), the alleged gun theft occurred when Day was a Chilmark Police officer, and received a pistol from a gun owner who wanted it destroyed. Day allegedly took the pistol home instead of destroying it. He later allegedly lied to Tisbury Police Chief Dan Hanavan about the situation. Tisbury resisted handing over that internal investigation report to The Times, but ultimately did. The report is linked here for the first time since its acquisition as a public record. The same report outlines an incident when Day allegedly had a car towed for questionable reasons, and another incident when Day was accused of emptying three to five Glock rounds into an allegedly truculent turkey, much to the chagrin of a neighbor who’d doted on the bird since it was a chick.
Unlike the gun theft incident, where Day denied he had made statements that were deemed to be untruthful by Chief Hanavan, Day admitted to Chief Saloio he “[expletive] up,” according to internal investigation records, after falsely arresting a 22-year-old man because his “distinctive gait” appeared similar to another man’s with one or more open warrants. Internal investigation records show Day allegedly arrested this man without checking his identification or even asking his name. The man wore mirrored sunglasses and a cowboy hat, according to internal investigation records and police reports, and wasn’t asked to remove them. Compounding the false arrest, the wrongly identified 22-year-old was taken to the Dukes County Jail, where he encountered his mother, a sheriff’s department sergeant. The idea that the 22-year-old was a wanted man quickly evaporated at that point. In a letter to the falsely arrested man, Chief Saloio expressed his apologies:
“On behalf of the Tisbury Police Department, I wish to extend my sincere apologies for the actions of Sgt. Day, toward you, on May 21st, 2021. Though the actions were neither ill-intentioned or deliberate, they were nonetheless preventable and inexcusable. As chief of the department, I take full responsibility for his mistake, and I apologize for any distress or embarrassment this incident may have caused for you, [redacted], and your family.”
Day is presently involved in a court matter where he may be the subject of a Brady rule motion. Edgartown defense attorney Ryan Searle, who represents Josuel Desouza and Eugene Jemison in two separate Tisbury Police cases, has filed motions to suppress evidence using the Brady rule. “The Brady Rule, named after Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), requires prosecutors to disclose materially exculpatory evidence in the government’s possession to the defense,” online material from Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute states. “Brady material,” or evidence the prosecutor is required to disclose under this rule, includes any evidence favorable to the accused — evidence that goes towards negating a defendant’s guilt, that would reduce a defendant’s potential sentence, or evidence going to the credibility of a witness. However, the officer who is the focus of the motions has not been disclosed. The cases revolve around OUI charges against Desouza and Jemison. Day was the approving officer for at least one of the police reports generated from the OUI charges. Searle has filed a sweeping discovery motion for both cases, with an eye toward racial profiling.
A year following Jemison’s OUI charge, which was brought in 2019, Day was involved in a situation that resembled entrapment. Day charged Jemison with operating with a suspended driver’s license after an incident at the Vineyard Haven Post Office, after Day allegedly told Jemison a vehicle he was in, or had been in, at the Post Office, needed to be moved.
“He said he would take care of it,” a report states. After Jemison began to move the vehicle, Day pulled him over and told Jemison he had a suspended license. Jemison, according to a report, said he had a valid driver’s license. Day, a report shows, disagreed, and issued Jemison a citation and a summons.
Chief Habekost said he didn’t think Day’s availability for court would make a difference in the case on operating with a suspended license.
Last week, Tisbury’s select board plugged the departmental hole left by Day’s resignation. The board elevated not one but two officers to the rank of sergeant.
Thank goodness the sun has finally set on this very bad Day.
GOOD RIDDANCE.
If only this meant the end of this menace’s “law enforcement career”. Being spared an obviously necessary firing means he’ll likely be hired by some police force, somewhere.
I pray for the citizens he will plague.
That will be quite enough, Gobble. Goodbye.
About time!!!!!
I have to say, the one time I spoke to this former officer, I didn’t like it.
And I don’t even have a “distinctive walk”.
Congratulations to the TPD for getting rid of this one bad apple.
I am dismayed by the smear campaign against Jeff Day. I would say it goes to his good character and honorable sense of duty to resign without comment from a town that doesn’t appreciate what he has to offer, which is plenty. Please Leave him alone. Enough already. I have gotten to know Jeff and his family personally, as he was my son’s baseball coach for a time. He was a great coach to these young men and taught them about much more than baseball. All the salacious junk I read in these monotonous, gossipy excuses for actual journalism make me queasy, along with the snarky ignorant comments to follow. My family knows this man and his family and they are good people. My sincere hope would be that Sgt. Day might one day be an officer in the island town I live in. I would feel safer and more confident knowing he was on the beat. I would vouch for him any day.
The behavior of Jeff Day and the entire Tisbury Police Department have become tiresome.
The gang that couldn’t shoot straight because they can’t find their guns.
If Jeff Day was an honest man he would expose the ongoing malfeasance in the Tisbury Police Department and their overlords.
Jeff Day is the kind of patriotic American who would never cross the Thin Blue Line.
The Band of Brothers.
Day’s Island law enforcement days are over.
With his resume he will be able to find work in Florida.
Amy – I’m happy to hear that you have had positive personal experiences with this individual… but on a professional note, his police career has been disastrous. Any individual who has a Brady violation will be unable to testify in court since they have already been deemed unreliable.
https://www.mvtimes.com/2019/09/11/tisbury-commends-sgt-day-restraint/
Actually, I think the word you are looking for is commendable
https://www.mvtimes.com/2021/06/08/distinctive-gait-led-arrest-wrong-man/
No, the word I was looking for is deplorable.
Why didn’t he get fired? Resigned? Ugh… resigned from Chilmark did bad stuff… did bad stuff in tis…. Resigned. Will the island ever make an example out of bad cops? So now he can get hired by OB, Edgertown, or wt if they dare. Or maybe he sells his house banks off the sale and moves off island and gets a job there. Island towns should give reasons for letting poor cops resign vs be fired. Will he get a cush caretaker job like choffi? Did Jeff get a youth lot too? Choffi did. That crooked smile with the gap teeth is just beaming through this cleaver cop, saying I got ya! Well Tom got it. Rip Tom the turkey.
I am quite glad about the two recent promotions to Sgt.
I have no clue who Edward St. Pierre is but all our interactions with officer Andrew Silvia and especially Detective Charlie Duquette have been nothing but positive and professional!
That is finally very good news.
We definitely / absolutely need more transparency in the department and Rich and the MV Times is doing a excellent job doing that!
We all want to totally support our department but things have to be on the up & up.
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