Now, friends and colleagues are wondering how the man with a sparkling 30-year career could be facing federal child pornography charges.
Bourque, a member of the town's youth advisory board and a volunteer for Paul Newman 's Hole in the Wall Gang, is accused of downloading more than 100,000 images of child pornography depicting boys in some cases as young as 1 to 3 years old.
A review of Granby's hiring of Bourque shows that the town made him go through all of the same procedures that it would have a new recruit. He was chosen over at least five other candidates, ironically, because town officials were impressed with his computer skills, records show.
Bourque took and passed a polygraph test, underwent a psychological exam and submitted fingerprints for a criminal background check. The town also hired a private investigator to do a more extensive background check.
Nothing alarming turned up, records show. Certainly nothing that signaled an interest in child pornography, town officials said.
He was hired on Jan. 8, 2010, at a salary of $86,281. Coupled with the more than $41,000 he was collecting on a pension from time spent with the Suffield department, Bourque was earning more than $125,000 and was next in line to become chief of the small department.
While awaiting trial, he is still being paid his full salary in Granby.
"Sometimes you can't measure or predict human behavior,'' Bourque's attorney Richard Brown said.
The background check did reveal that Bourque, while still an officer in Suffield, was the subject of a police investigation i n Saco, Maine , where he still owns a cottage. On May 21, 2009, Bourque and his now ex-wife got into a dispute over who was going to get some family photos and police were called to the scene but no one was arrested, according to the Saco police report included in Bourque's file.
Bourque also was interviewed by a five-member committee that included a vice principal, a clergyman and a member of the youth advisory board. Bourque was one of six candidates interviewed by that committee and all but one member, the Rev. Daniel Schroeder of First Congregational Church, gave him a high score.
Schroeder said this week his recollection of the interview was that Bourque was extremely nervous and that he rarely made eye contact during the interview, particularly with any of the three women on the panel. "I just thought it was interesting that he didn't make eye contact with any of the women,'' Schroeder said. "All of this was extremely subtle; all of the candidates were very good."
By all accounts Bourque's transition to Granby was seamless. The department is about the same size as Suffield's. He was put on a youth advisory board and was still the head of the regional accident reconstruction team.
It was that team that originally was in charge of the fatal accident investigation involving off-duty Windsor Locks police Officer Michael Koistinen, who was driving a car that struck and killed 15-year-old Henry Dang as he rode his bicycle home in October.
But Bourque and his team were removed from the case when it was revealed that no one had given Koistinen a blood-alcohol test to see if he had been drinking before the accident. The state police took over the investigation, arrested Michael Koistinen and then his father, Robert Koistinen, on obstruction of justice charges. Sources said state police also investigated whether to arrest Bourque.
Sources said state police investigated why Bourque left the scene of the crash in under an hour. Brown acknowledged police were questioning whether Bourque had been drinking before he arrived at the scene.
Then in late April, the 51-year-old captain tried to kill himself by taking pills after investigators showed up at the West Suffield home owned by his new wife with a warrant to seize computers. Days later, on April 27, Bourque was arrested by state and federal authorities while he was still in the hospital. .
He is currently free on a $150,000 bond and has been cooperating with investigators, while also seeking counseling, Brown said.
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