The Rochester Select Board Monday night conducted a dangerous-dog hearing based on a charge by police that the 12-year-old American Pit Bull Nomad owned by John McCusker of 105 Robinson Road has been used as a weapon to threaten town law enforcement officers.
In the end, the board concluded the animal’s actions just warranted six month’s probation. But before that happened, Rochester Police officers, including Chief Robert Small, filled one side of the meeting room as the Select Board heard testimony that Nomad bit Officer Brendan Emberg when he attempted to enter McCusker’s home on July 8, 2021, to investigate a report that edibles were being consumed where there was a child. The encounter sent Emberg to Tobey Hospital with an elbow injury.
In another incident, on February 11, 2023, Officer Scott Smith said he was threatened with an attack from Nomad when Smith tried to stop McCusker’s wife in a motor-vehicle stop near their home and approached the front door.
McCusker’s spouse had refused to stop and entered the home. McCusker called on Nomad to stop Smith from entering the house. Small said McCusker’s wife was being pulled over for driving without a license.
“She refused and pulled into the driveway,” Small said. “They then used the dog as a weapon against an officer. If it were any other weapon, you would take it away. We request this dog be deemed dangerous and be restrained.”
McCusker responded that no one was in the house at the time of officer Emberg’s entry in July 2021. “I was away fishing,” McCusker said. “He went into my house. And this was his (Nomad’s) domain. So he protected it.”
McCusker noted that in other cases when there’s a warrant, he puts the dog away. When there’s no warrant, he does not.
Select Board Chairman Woody Hartley said this is a difficult decision. It is not really the dog that’s the problem, he said. It is the owner. It is what he does.
Attorney Michael Kennefick of Town Counsel Mead, Talerman & Costa said he’s seen no other case like this one, where the dog is accused of being weaponized. He told the board it had the option of deeming the dog a danger or simply a nuisance. Then the board may decide what remedy to impose as a result of its decision.
The board chose to deem Nomad dangerous and declared that the dog be restrained and confined to the owner’s control and property. But it also approved revisiting the case in six months to give McCusker time to keep Nomad in check. McCusker agreed that all of this was doable.
“I’m happy the board deemed the dog dangerous,” Small said after the vote. “And six months gives us time to see if there will be a next time.”
Next, the Select Board approved a new, nine-member Hazardous Mitigation Plan Committee. Town Planner Nancy Durfee explained the need for such a panel by noting the town is receiving federal funding to create a local plan to prepare for natural disasters.
The committee that will prepare this plan will be Durfee, Small, Selectman Paul Ciaburri, Fire Chief Scott Weigel, Highway Superintendent Jeff Eldridge, Facilities Manager Andrew Daniel, Building Commissioner Paul Boucher, citizen Sean Morrison (owner of a local daycare center) and a second citizen member who has yet to confirm her interest.
The board then voted to place on the Town Meeting Warrant an article that would rescind the 2018 Special Town Meeting approval adopting the STRETCH energy code.
Hartley said he agreed to place this article on the warrant but feels it might be premature. He said the town does not have all the information it needs to decide if building new municipal facilities without STRETCH Code requirements will be less expensive than construction under the codes.
“I am not decided on this issue,” Hartley said. “I hope people will come to Town Meeting educated.”
The chance for that education will be Monday, April 10, when a presentation on STRETCH Code regulations will be held at the Rochester Council on Aging, 67 Dexter Lane, at 7:00 pm, Town Administrator Glenn Cannon said.
The Rochester Select Board will meet next on Tuesday, April 18, at 6:00 pm, at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco