Shortly into her debate with challenger Michael Minogue Thursday night, Governor Maura Healey faced a question that’s been put to her and many governors before: How, if given four more years in office, would she change the “culture of misconduct” in a State Police department riddled with it?
Healey’s response: She is “proud” of the State Police, and her hand-picked leader, Colonel Geoffrey D. Noble, is doing wonderfully.
But it’s what she said immediately before that touched a nerve.
The background to the question was the scandal that erupted this week after a man was charged with raping a woman he brought back to the State Police barracks on Martha’s Vineyard while staying there as a guest of a state trooper, raising a host of questions about protocol in the department’s facilities.
“Do things happen? Sometimes things happen,” Healey responded. “But I can tell you, [Noble] and I make sure that swift action is taken.”
By Friday, Healey’s remarks in the debate response stung some advocates for survivors of sexual assault. They worry that in an environment already super-charged amid reports of a brutal gang rape at Cornell University, what state leaders say — and the message it sends to survivors — matters even more.
To hear the governor characterize the episode as “things happen” was “disappointing,” said Amanda Walsh, deputy director of external affairs at the Boston-based Victim Rights Law Center.
“We know sexual violence does happen. But I think survivors are looking for leaders to take accountability,” Walsh said. “This was a real opportunity for the governor to demonstrate that Massachusetts is a safe place for survivors. It feels like a miss.”
Minogue, too, jumped to criticize Healey’s comments, casting her response to the State Police controversy as emblematic of a lack of accountability across her administration.
“The governor just said, ‘Sometimes things happen.’ That is unacceptable. A woman was raped,” the Hamilton Republican said from the debate stage. “And when you have people that break the law or do things wrong, you are judged on your accountability.”
Edward J. Brown, 27, was arrested Oct. 9 at Boston Latin Academy, where he worked as a safety official. He was arraigned Tuesday in Edgartown District Court and pleaded not guilty.
It was not immediately clear if State Police allow people from outside the agency to stay overnight at the barracks. Officials said earlier this week that the department has opened its own internal affairs investigation.
Late Friday, a spokesperson for the State Police said Noble “has prohibited” overnight guests at the temporary housing at both the barracks on Martha’s Vineyard and on Nantucket.
The department said Noble also “directed the development” of a formal policy requiring written approval from the barracks commander for any visitors to enter any nonpublic areas on barracks property, and that they must remain accompanied.
Healey, in a separate statement, called the alleged assault a “horrific crime,” and said that “there is absolutely zero tolerance for this kind of conduct on State Police property or anywhere in Massachusetts.”
The episode adds to a string of scandals that have engulfed the State Police.
Two years after a recruit died from head injuries sustained during training, the agency said this spring it would overhaul its academy program. Noble in July then said that “hundreds, if not thousands” of cases handled by former trooper Michael Proctor — once the lead investigator in the criminal case against Karen Read — need to be reviewed following the disclosure of years of bigoted messages he sent disparaging various groups.
And the controversy in Martha’s Vineyard raised fresh questions about how the department operates.
Dennis Galvin, a retired State Police major and president of the Massachusetts Association for Professional Law Enforcement, said that even allowing Brown to stay at the barracks was a “breakdown of professional standards.”
“The only people who should be in there [besides State Police staff] is if they’re in custody and facing charges and are in the lockup. That’s a security risk,” Galvin said. “The police have to maintain a level of public trust with the citizens of the Commonwealth. When you have a breakdown like this, that undermines that confidence.”
Healey, a former two-term attorney general, on Thursday emphasized that Brown is not himself a member of the State Police. And she noted that, as attorney general, she frequently ”prosecuted wrongdoers and represented survivors and victims of sexual abuse.”
“The question was about what happened between civilians, and importantly, that victim is having her rights vindicated right now,” Healey said Thursday night. “The perpetrator was a civilian, not a member of the State Police.”
At the debate, Healey — who has been endorsed by the State Police Association of Massachusetts, which represents the State Police troopers and sergeants — added that she’s “proud of the Massachusetts State Police.”
“Colonel Noble has come in and, with his management team, done a wonderful job, in my view,” she said.
However, there is something of an echo in her debate remarks to what Healey said in 2023 in response to another sexual assault case involving a state-funded facility: the rape of a 15-year-old girl at a hotel in Rockland that was being used as a state-funded shelter for migrants.
“It is unfortunate that from time to time, things will happen . . . not just in shelter, but anywhere,” she said at the time. She also was emphatic that officials “take all allegations of sexual assault most seriously.”
In the Rockland case, a man who was also staying in the shelter was convicted of rape in 2025.
As for the Martha’s Vineyard incident, Liz Speakman, executive director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, said she believes that law enforcement “have done their due diligence.”
And Healey, she said, has a long history of supporting domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, including, she said, committing millions of dollars to fill what she called a gap in federal funding.
“Actions,” she said, “speak louder than words.”
Chris Serres of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.