Canton PD Sally Port

About

The Canton PD sally port — the secured garage bay where police vehicles and seized vehicles are processed — held Karen Read's Lexus SUV from the morning of January 29 to February 1, 2022, when State Police executed a search warrant. During those three days, Officer Paul Gallagher conceded, the sally port was accessible to "the entire department" — roughly forty-five Canton PD personnel. The sally port became the physical stage for the defense's evidence-tampering theory, and two features of its surveillance record drove days of courtroom argument. First, the sally port camera recorded a mirrored, left-right inverted image on January 29. The defense argued the inversion was never disclosed during direct examination; Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik later testified the camera "had been recording that way prior to January 29th." Asked directly whether he or Trooper Proctor had touched the tail-light area while the vehicle was in the sally port, Bukhenik answered, "We absolutely did not." Second, a 42-minute gap exists in the video of Read's vehicle's arrival — the only window in which the tail light's condition at delivery could have been documented. A 2023 statement by Canton dispatcher Kelly Dever describing Higgins and Berkowitz in the sally port added a further point of defense focus.