SPRINGFIELD - Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet handed down lengthy suspensions without pay to two officers who in September got into a fistfight with each other in the police station parking garage while on duty, a police official said Tuesday.

Fitchet on Friday suspended officer Jody Catellier for 75 working days and officer Angel Berrios for 45 working days, said Capt. Robert A. Cheetham, the department’s professional standards officer.

Based on a five-day work week, the suspension will cost Barrios pay for nine weeks and Catellier 15.

Cheetham said the Sept. 4 fight started at about 11 p.m. and was triggered when one of the officers threw a water bottle across the garage and inadvertently struck the other. This led to heated words and then punches being thrown. The fight spilled over from the garage to hallway and flight of stairs inside the station, he said.

Cheetham said he did not want to specify who threw the bottle, but said both were in the wrong for allowing the incident to escalate to the point of violence.

“Cooler heads did not prevail,” he said.

Fitchet handed down the punishment following an investigation by the department’s Internal Investigations Unit, and internal hearings on Jan. 28 led by Deputy Chief William C. Cochrane.

Catellier has been with the department since 1996. Berrios joined the department in 1997. At the time of the incident, both were uniformed patrol officers on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift.

Cheetham said Catellier was given a longer punishment because he had been disciplined at least once before. He declined to elaborate.

The department operates on what Cheetham called a system of progressive discipline, where the degree of punishment increases for subsequent violations.

Cheetham said the action by Fitchet signals that the commissioner has no tolerance for a lapse in discipline by officers. He said that police officers, armed with firearms and other weapons and trained in their use, are supposed to maintain a degree of composure at all times.

“It is a lesson to the two officers,” he said. “It is a lesson to everyone.”

It was the same parking garage where in 1973 a fight between officers led to shots being fired, leaving officer William R. Berte dead and officer Paul W. Rackowe arrested. He eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The incident is the latest in a series of allegations of officers behaving badly.

Four police officers were accused of police brutality following a Nov. 27 traffic stop in which drug suspect Melvin Jones III of Springfield was beaten with a flashlight.

That incident is under investigation by the Internal Investigations Unit and the Detective Bureau.

The Police Department is also investigating allegations by a city man who claims he was beaten in September by police after he had a "domestic quarrel" with the niece of one of the officers.

Cheetham was named head of professional standards for the department by Fitchet in the wake of the Jones allegations.

The head of the police patrolmen’s union and the union attorney could not be reached for comment.