The Misuse of Police Force in Worcester

The City’s Misuse of Police  

The order by a City official to arrest Chris Horton at the Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast came as no surprise to me. The City has a history of misusing police force to solve what are social issues.

In the 1990s, then Mayor Mariano ordered the police to arrest students not in school during school hours, despite the fact that the Worcester School had truant officers who did the same job. This practice was opposed by a small group, International Committee Against Racism' which said that the police arresting children was a traumatizing event. The City bosses did not listen. The practice of the police arresting children for playing hooky was effective stopped by a complaint made to the State Department of Labor Relations. The Hearing Officer ruled that arresting children for playing hooky was outside of the police contract.

Recently Mayor Petty and others passed an ordinance allowing the arrest of panhandlers. The proponents of the use of police force against this social issue used the pretext of ‘public safety”. In memory there was never any one injured by a car while panhandling. Hundreds of people were wrongfully arrested under this ordinance. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the ordinances unconstitutional. The ACLU and a small group of activist, Real Solutions” opposed the unconstitutional ordinances.

 Last year the City Council instructed the City Manager to put police officers full time in the Worcester Public Schools.  The City Council and School Committee had assigned full time police officers to each of the high schools. They did this BEFORE the Safety Report was finished. They did this BEFORE the State required Memorandum of Understanding was completed. It is still not complete.

There is no evidence that Worcester Schools had a serious safety issue. There is no evidence that police in the schools have made any school safer today. There is evidence that more students are being arrested at school for non criminal activities that should be handled by the State mandated disciplinary policies found in M.G.L. Chap 222, Acts of 2012.

There is evidence that these arrests are traumatic experiences for the students and contribute to the school to jail pipeline.  Two small group Mass. Human Rights and the Progressive Labor Party are opposing the arresting of students at school. The groups are hosting a “Students’ Rights Forum" , 1-30-16, 1 PM Worcester Public Library.

The most obvious misuse of police force was the malicious prosecution of the BlackLives Matter protesters after the Kelly Square demonstration of 2015. There was not enough evidence for either the police or the DA to file charges. City Manager Augustus then ordered the police department to use an unauthenticated video to take to the Clerk Magistrate.

 The Clerk Magistrate ruled that there was some evidence of disturbing the peace.  At the trial the police sergeant said that he did not see anyone at the demonstration do anything criminal. The judge has ruled that there were no criminal penalties. On 1-21-16 the Court found three of the defendants responsible.

The Worcester SWAT was recently used on a raid on a wrong house and there has been no investigation of what went wrong or review of police.

Mr. Niddrie, co chair of the MLK Jr. Breakfast, could have talked to Mr. Horton BEFORE he called the cops. However the so called liberals in City government are quicker to use police force than to talk about other solutions.

In each of the events above there was an element of direct or disparate racism impact. This is especially true in the Worcester Schools where thousands of students face increase risk of arrest for non criminal matters.

 Many in the Black Community wonder aloud how did the MLK Jr. Breakfast get hijacked by the political establishment.

The use of police force to solve social problems is a sign of laziness and lack of creativity among our City officials. There is certainly a need to consider this when choosing who controls the police in our City.