A top Plymouth police official has been on paid leave for three weeks while the town investigates allegations that he physically and verbally assaulted his father at a dance recital last month.
Captain Jason Higgins, a command staff member who serves as spokesman and chief of professional standards, has denied the allegations made in a Facebook post last month by his stepmother, Maggie Higgins.
He said he asked to be placed on leave – which started June 24 – while the investigation is ongoing.
“It’s a shame that a family disagreement was exaggerated and then posted on Facebook,” he said.
Police officials say they are investigating the incident. It’s unclear if the town is doing a separate investigation. Town Manager Derek Brindisi declined comment, calling it a “personnel matter.”
Maggie Higgins described the June 8 incident – which allegedly took place at a children’s dance recital in Kingston – in a Facebook post three days later. She also contacted Kingston police.
Since confirming the details, however, she and her husband, Cliff Higgins, said they didn’t wish to have their family drama aired out in public.
At the recital, Maggie and Cliff were sitting with Jason Higgins wife. The couple is going through an acrimonious divorce. He acknowledges that he is estranged from his father.
Jason Higgins was allegedly irked that his father and stepmother remained close to her after the breakup, wrote Maggie under her maiden name, Maggie St. Denis.
“Cliff was in the seat closest to the aisle,” she wrote. “Jason came up from behind & said these EXACT words to HIS FATHER: “When you DIE, and I HOPE IT’S SOON, I will PISS on YOUR GRAVE!”
“As he spoke, he HIT his FATHER on the back 3 times HARD (not hard enough to knock Cliff out of his seat, but, certainly much harder than most guys would hit their buddies when saying hello.)”
“CLIFF HIGGINS is a United States Marine,” she wrote. “He is a 75 YEAR OLD PURPLE HEART VIETNAM VETERAN.”
In response, Jason Higgins cited a Facebook post from his daughter, directed toward his stepmother, to back up his assertion that the incident did not happen. “He never put his hands on his father,” his daughter wrote. “What you are doing is wrong and you are hurting more people than you think.”
Maggie Higgins quickly responded on Facebook. “Your Father absolutely DID HIT your grandfather,” she wrote. “You are mistaken. You were not standing next to your grandfather or your father when it happened.”
Her original June 11 Facebook post was taken down shortly after it appeared, though not by her, she said. She doesn’t know who removed it.
Also on June 11, she contacted Kingston police, who ended up writing two versions of the incident report.
The original report did not mention a physical assault — just a pat on the back. It did contain the allegation that Jason Higgins told his father: “When you die, I’m going to piss on your grave.”
In the report, Kingston police officer Martin McDonald said he told Maggie Higgins the statements were disrespectful but not threatening. He said that if he wanted, her husband could seek a restraining order.
Cliff Higgins has not requested a restraining order or filed a complaint, records show.
Maggie Higgins said that when she received a copy of McDonald’s report, it didn’t reflect what actually happened. So on June 26, she asked McDonald to amend it.
The new version contained the allegations that the police captain hit his father three times on the back, and that she believed the behavior to be “assaultive,” McDonald wrote.
On June 24, Plymouth police chief Dana Flynn visited Maggie and Cliff’s Carver home, where she recounted the alleged confrontation, she has said. A week later, however, Flynn told the Independent he was investigating the allegations despite receiving “no direct report from the author of the post, nor anyone allegedly involved.”
“We are doing our due diligence and looking into the matter,” he said in a July 1 email.
In a subsequent email, Flynn did not address the apparent inconsistency, saying, “The employee and involved parties have a right to privacy. I will not make any statement until [the investigation] is completed.”
Cliff Higgins told the Independent he doesn’t want his son punished, saying he’s an excellent police officer whom he loves “dearly.”
“Unfortunately, this thing has gone far beyond where I ever thought it was going to go,” he said.
“Sometimes when you’re in the position of a dad you have to take a little heat. I certainly did,” he said. “But regardless, I still want to see him be a policeman 100 years from now. He’s wanted it since he was in diapers, and I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to him.”
Jason Higgins, who joined the Plymouth Police force in 1997, has played a major role in many of the department’s most significant cases and activities.
He recently helped organize searches for Rodney Riviello, the 69-year-old Plymouth man who died after wandering away from the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth.
He has twice saved people experiencing medical emergencies.
In 2016, he revived the father of the bride who stopped breathing at a wedding at the White Cliffs Country Club, where Higgins happened to be having dinner.
Three years before that, he came to the rescue of a choking teenager by performing the Heimlich maneuver.
But in 2021, Higgins was disciplined after he contacted town officials as they were in the process of choosing a new police captain. He expressed his preference for then Lt. James LeBretton over Sgt. Scott Vecchi, the top scorer on the promotional exam.
Higgins was cited for having “unauthorized and inappropriate” conversations regarding the promotional process.
It’s unclear how long the investigation into the alleged Kingston incident will take.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.