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VA Medical Center Director John P. Collins

(Don Treeger)

NORTHAMPTON - After a veteran was assaulted by a nursing assistant the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds this January, it took three months to charge and arraign the defendant. Part of the problem is that witnesses who worked with him did not immediately report the incident. That, said director John P. Collins, must change.

It was Jan. 25 when Garrett Crehan, 42, of Ashfield allegedly picked the 61-year-old veteran off the floor, put him in bed, twisted his arm behind his back, put a knee in his ribs and threatened to kill him. It wasn't until mid-April when Crehan was arraigned in Northampton District Court on assault and battery on a disabled person over 60.

Part of the delay, according to police reports, was because other VA employees who saw the incident did not report it right away. Collins said the staff at the medical center has spent this week and will spend the next one discussing the VA's core values.

"We have an obligation to report things that don't look right," he said Friday.

Collins asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to look into the incident. He said Special Agent Matthew Kidd found that there had been a lapse in reporting it.

Judge W. Michael Goggins released Crehan on his own recognizance after the Northampton arraignment, but he was already being held without right to bail after a dangerousness hearing in Franklin County sparked by his arraignment there on charges of assault and battery and strangulation regarding his girlfriend. Crehan is still in custody, said Northwestern Assistant District Attorney Becky Michaels.