Officer Charles M. DiChiara has been a Police Officer for the past 34 years. He currently works for the City of Waltham, MA Police Department and is the Training Officer/Coordinator for the Police Department, after spending 27 years working nights in the Patrol Division.
For the past 30 years, Off. DiChiara has also been assigned to the NEMLEC SWAT
Team, a multi-jurisdictional tactical team that is responsible for responding to
critical incidents within the 64 cities and towns in the Greater Boston and
Northeast region of Massachusetts. He has been involved in over 1000 swat
missions and was a member of the Alpha/Primary Entry Team, as well as the Training Cadre. He recently retired from SWAT, and was the first officer to have his badge number "retired11 Off. DiChiara received the George L. Hanna Award for Bravery from the State of Massachusetts in 2006 for his role in a hostage crisis
in which multiple shots were fired. He also received a city citation for his role in apprehending a suicidal male armed with a shotgun. He recently received a Resolution from the City of Waltham for his role in the Boston Marathon incident, as well as his role in the apprehension of both terror suspects during the Watertown event in 2013.
Off. DiChiara is a state and nationally certified Instructor-Trainer in the areas of Firearms, Defensive Tactics, Use of Force, Physical Fitness, Active Shooter Resolution and Verbal Defense and Influence. He holds the ranking of Master Instructor in the commonwealth, as well as being a Master Instructor for both laser International and the Monadnock-Safariland Training Group. Off. DiChiara is a graduate of both the Use of Force Instructor school at FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) and Force Science Institute in Virginia, certified to analyze use of force incidents as it relates to human performance and behavior factors. He has graduated from both the Basic 40 hour Program as well as the 18-week Advanced Analyst Program at the Force
Science Institute, under the tutelage of Dr. Bill Lewinski.
In 2011, Off. DiChiara received the distinction of being nominated for
Master/International Instructor by the Monadnock-Safariland Training Group. After training with officers from Switzerland and the U.K., he became the 113th Master Instructor, out of the 52,000 instructors worldwide and the 3500
Advanced Instructors. In 2018 Off. DiChiara was promoted to the Advisory Board for the Safariland Training Group.
He has been training police officers since 1999 and has trained in excess of 15,000 police officers as well as 6000 law enforcement instructors across the country. He has trained the Columbian National Police, as well as officers from Canada, Switzerland and England.
In 2020 Officer DiChiara was appointed as the Statewide Coordinator for Police Use of Force & Defensive Tactics. He was also appointed by the Mayor of New Bedford to the Use of Force Commission. He sits on the Defensive Tactics Executive Committee, the Firearms Executive Committee and recently help form the Patrol Tactics Advisory Group, which merges all of the Statewide Coordinators working together under the same umbrella.
Off. DiChiara is a court qualified expert witness in Defensive Tactics, Police Use of Force, and police standards and practices. He has been qualified as an expert in District and State Superior Court, as well as Federally in United States District Court. In 2015 Off. DiChiara was identified as one of four SM E's (Subject Matter Experts) in police use of force for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In 2014 he assisted with the update and rewrite of the Defensive Tactics Manual for the state, and in 2018 he assisted with revamping the MPTC's Basic Recruit Academy Training Program, in the areas of Use of Force and Arrest and Control. He has been at the forefront of Police Reform in Massachusetts, working directly with Police Officer Standards & Training (POST), the Municipal Police Training Committee (MPTC} and the Executive Office of Public Safety & Security (EOPSS) to help establish Rules and Regulations and a Model Policy for Police Use of Force. Officer DiChiara is currently the Lead Defensive Tactics and a Firearms Instructor at Lowell, Randolph, Northern Essex Community College and Merrimack College Police Academies.
Chuck’s Linkedin: Click Here
Interview Transcript: Click Here