Canton residents are skeptical that the firm that audited the town’s police department did an adequate job conducting the independent report, saying they feel like their voices weren’t heard in the process.

Officials from 5 Stones intelligence, Inc., which dropped their months-long audit of the department last week, presented their findings and heard from residents during a forum on Saturday.

Resident Greg Murphy said he signed a petition that led to the November 2023 Town Meeting vote that authorized the audit because he found it to be the “only way to renew trust between the police department and the citizens of Canton.”

Murphy, however, also expressed that 5 Stones might have dropped the ball in getting residents’ perspectives of the department, which is at the center of multiple controversial cases – the deaths of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe and resident Sandra Birchmore.

“Many town members have been calling for a meeting like this to speak about the issues and ask questions,” Murphy said. “I think there should have been several meetings like this during the audit process. … I think 5 Stones missed a key part of the process to reestablish trust in the Canton Police.”

The Canton Police Audit Committee inked a $198,000 deal last fall for 5 Stones to complete the report. Organization director Matt Germanowski said after an initial trip to the town in November, he received instructions that there’d be “only one point of contact” going forward.

“We have no say on how that contract was written,” Germanowski said. “If there were to be updates, we would have provided them. … This is very unusual.”

The audit dropped on the same day the Karen Read retrial started and included recommendations on how the crime scene surrounding O’Keefe’s body could have been worked better.

Read, 45, is accused of striking O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years and a 16-year Boston Police officer, with her car and leaving him to die in a major snowstorm on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Rd., in Canton — a property that O’Keefe’s BPD colleague Brian Albert owned at the time.

Defense attorneys counter that outside actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and local police to frame Read for his murder in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.

Read has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal collision.

Germanowski, during Saturday’s forum, stuck to the key points he made at the Audit Committee’s meeting on Thursday: The department needs to improve its crime scene protocols, internal affairs, and training. He added that the audit did not find any indication of conspiracies, coverups, or corruption.

The audit team reported it had spent about 12 weeks in Canton evaluating the day-to-day operations. While there, they interviewed every member of the PD’s staff, which includes more than 40 officers.

The report noted that there “is a noticeable decrease in morale among department members, largely due to public scrutiny regarding the Canton PD’s handling of the crime scene and the investigation into the death of … O’Keefe.”

Multiple anonymous quotes from officers, including about low morale in the department, are part of the report: “No one in this town will care about us until one of us gets murdered, even then half the town will probably celebrate that.” The interviewees also expressed that they do not believe they have the support of town officials.

Resident Rita Lombardi, a vocal police critic and a central leader of the Free Karen Read movement during the initial trial that ended with a deadlocked jury last year, said she’s “saddened” by the low morale comments.

“This town, the last few years, has been through extraordinary times, extraordinary hardships,” Lombardi said. “I wonder if those officers took any responsibility for the morale issues because the morale issues are on both sides. If you don’t own what has caused the morale issue, you will never be able to fix the morale issue.”

Germanowski responded: “When you watch a videotape from a body camera, and a person speaking to the officer says ‘I hope you die,’ how do you take responsibility for that? … I think there are public themes being put out by people that just aren’t true.”

Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe died at 46 in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. His girlfriend Karen Read is about to be tried for a second time for his murder. (Collage of BPD photo of O’Keefe and Herald photo of Read by Stuart Cahill)