Worcester Police Policy Explained

Courtesy Bill Coleman

What’s Up With Worcester Police

In August 2016 Mayor Joseph Petty said that there was no need for City Council to have public hearings on Worcester Police policies as Chief Steven Sargent was already meeting the public at crime watch and other organizations. One of these meeting was on September 26, 2016 at the YWCA where the NAACP hosted the Chief.

During the meeting there was some discussion about the crime watch meetings and other police events being hard to find. Even the Chief could say exactly where on social media we should look.

Another problem with attending the crime watch meetings is that they are not necessarily public meetings. There was a little dust up at the YWCA. A man claiming to be head of operations called the police when people holding signs for the NAACP meeting were told that they could not hold there. Chief Sargent came over and defused the situation.

The first thing we learned from the Chief is that City Council makes the decisions on the type of police policy. Chief Sargent said he could not respond on the issues of “Broken Windows” and “Stop and Frisk”. The policy for Worcester is “Community Policing”. There is evidence, the so called arrest sweeps and quality of life” that at least a modified form of Broken Windows is a de facto policy.

The issue of body cameras was raised.  Police Chief said that there were constitutional issue being reviewed by the Legal Department. He gave no timeline on this issue, although the ACLU has established guidelines for the use of body cameras for the Boston police are using.

In regards to transparency Chief Sargent said that there is being set up a Civilian Academy in which police procedures would be discussed. The Academy is expected to start in February 2017.

Dirt Bike policy was clarified to some extent.  A legal dirt bike on the street gets as citation and likely will be confiscated. The Chief said that these bikes are returned to their owners. A stolen dirt bike rider will be arrested.

There was no clarification of when legal dirt bikes are confiscated from private property.

Affirmative Action was discussed. The Chief said that more Latinos are accepting police positions than are African Americans. He said his department is working to ensure 25 percent of applicants are minorities.  What he did not say was that almost all successful applicant are former military who have preferential treatment over other applicants.

 Some push back came over the issue of school to jail pipeline and the use of uniformed police in Worcester Schools. There are 9 officers assigned to Worcester Schools. Seven officers are in the High Schools and two officers are assign to split duty in the Middle Schools.

The push back came in the form of four teachers, two of who are still teaching.

One teacher asked about the drug screening that is going on at Burncoat Middle School. The Chief said he was not aware of the program. The program was initiated by Governor Baker via the recent Opioid Bill passed last January.

Another teacher indicated that an implicit racism in having uniformed police in schools. The background to this is the inability to have an honest discussion of the police killings in places like Tulsa, Baltimore, or Ferguson. On the surface there is cordiality, but the real issue of race and power are hidden away.   

I have to say the Chief Sargent is personable, knowledgeable, and seeming long winded. He told us stories of the old days when he was mentored by Loman Rutherford, a Black officer. I did not hear much from him that was exceptional.

Events and time will tell if Chief Sargent will make a difference or will be restricted by the material conditions and facts of his job.

PROFILED The Real Dialogs on Race

PROFILED, The Real Dialog on Police Brutality

Last week at least two Black men were killed by the police.  One of the men killed, Terrence Crutcher, was unarmed with his hands up. There is evidence that the second man killed, Keith Scott, was also unarmed.

In Tulsa OK the police officer who killed Mr. Crutcher has been arrested for manslaughter. There is an investigation on going regarding the death of Mr. Scott.  

The authorities in Charlotte have not released the police video and are being somewhat secretive.

Before the Blacklives Matter Civil rights movement few if any police officers were ever held responsible for deaths that took place while on duty.

A part of the change has been real dialogs among people that video and social media have created. The old police policies, such as hiding the civilian complaints, are anachronistic and only lead to the further mistrust in the government and its police forces. The contrast between Tulsa OK and Charlotte NC is compelling.

These real dialogs are sometimes initiated by the community. Such a dialog took place on September 22, 2016, first at Worcester State University and then in the evening at the College of the Holy Cross.

The documentary PROFILED was produced over a three year period. It memorializes the effect on the families of the men and women killed by the police.  The documentary was directed by award winning producer Kathleen Foster.

The families in the documentary talked of the loss of their children and the loss by children of a parent. I was especially moved by the six year daughter of a victim of police killing who looked bewildered and sad at the same time. An affect of people who are coming to grips with the unthinkable unconsciously show.

Another emotional part of the documentary was a Puerto Rican mother who was crying. She said that after eight months police department finally released the names of the officers who shot her son dead. The secrecy of the police only added to her grief.

I viewed this poor woman’s agony my mind flashed to the secrecy of the Worcester government and its police department. I thought of the joke of the DOJ so called dialogs perpetrated on us by City Manager Augustus. He has continued in his failure to release the report of a racist incident at City Hall.

After the film screening at Worcester State there was a discussion of the root causes of racism, poverty, and discrimination. The panel consisted of Dr. Henry C. Theriault, Dr. Tanya Mears, Kathleen Foster, and Gwen Davis.

The discussion at Holy Cross was more focused on events on campus. One of which was a silent protest against disparate treatment. Mr. Robert Jones moderated the discussion there.

 Several people from each school said that they help local Worcester groups fight for racial and economic justice.

It is time that the City government and the police chief engaged in real dialog with the residents of Worcester regarding police policy. It is time to stop telling us on the one hand there is no broken window policies when it conducts weekly “sweeps” of neighborhood arresting the so called “undesirable”.

 It is time for the Manager, Mayor, and Chief to stop say there is “community policing” when it hides it policies and finances from the community.

Good Dogs and Their Owners

Good Dogs and Their Owners

The Worcester City Council will hold public hearings on the Master Plan for Dogs in what are now people parks and on dedicated doggie parks. The hearing is scheduled for September 15, 2016, 5:30 pm, in City Hall Chamber.

Right now no dogs are allowed in any City park on leash or off leash. Some people consider this regulation too restrictive. However there are reasons that such regulations were enacted, bad doggies owners.

Dogs as a rule are dangerous and dirty animals. Of course some doggies will disagree; they are likely the good dog owners.

The bad doggies owns clean up the shit that their animals leave behind. I have lived in our house almost 40 years and I only seen one doggie owner clean up their doggie’s shit. Most of the time I find the doggie shit on the lawn.

I image that most doggies owners when walking their dogs in City parks will not pick up their doggies’ shit. Such people are not good doggies owners.

I also know that many people of all races are afraid of doggies. Some like we Black people have been hunted by racists and their dogs. Other people especially children have a natural fear of dangerous animals. Even dangerous doggies  on a leash which is barking and acting aggressively.

When a doggies is barking and acting aggressively a good own will make the animal heel and shorten his leach and move away from the people being frightened. Sometimes even good owners will instead argue and say “Oh he does not bite”

There are about 900.000 reported doggie bites a year in the United States. This is more than auto accidents in the United States. It is likely doggie bites are under reported. There is around 700 doggie bites in Massachusetts a year.

In 1997 the City of Worcester found out it could not make all of the doggie owners pick up their doggies’ shit. Nothing has been done to ensure that ALL of the doggies’ owners will pick up their shit. This will mean unsanitary conditions in the parks meant for people and sitting on the grass and picnics.

There is no plan to stop the doggies, even with good owners, from frightening and terrifying people, especially children. These people who are afraid of doggies will eventually be driven out of the park.

I like doggies. I think there should be a doggie park built on City property near Coal Mine Brook. This piece of land was proposed by Manager O’Brien to be a park with a bike path to Regatta Point. It has not been a people’s park and so people without doggies will not be driven in fright out of the park, as would be case elsewhere.

Since Coal Mine Brook will be a doggie park only the doggies owners can easily impose a clean-up your shit rule and people without doggies will not have to put up with the doggies’ dirty mess.

It was not that long ago the City of Worcester CLOSED Worcester swimming pools with the pretext that it did not have the money to maintain the pools. Of course the children of the City who increasing Black, Hispanic, and immigrants suffered.

With doggies in the people parks some children will be frightened away from them, especially when the parks adjoin a playground.

Today the Worcester City Schools are overcrowded with up to 34 students in some classrooms. The City schools are begging people for money.

It does not  make any sense for the City to consider building 5 doggies only parks at a cost of $400,000 each when the Worcester Schools go begging?

I think one doggie only park at Coal Mine Brook as a pilot would be sensible. I do not think that spending $2,000,000 on doggies plus annual maintenance is sensible.

It seems that Mr. Rosen, the doggies owners champion, has become further color blind and failed to see the larger picture.

Zero Pedestrian Deaths

Zero Pedestrian Deaths

The City of Boston Massachusetts has recently lowered the speed limit for streets in its “urban areas” which include business districts and residential dwellings with less than 100 feet between dwellings for a distance of at least one-eighth of a mile. The reason for this law is to reduce accidents and pedestrian deaths.

The Boston City Council and Boston representatives in the State House were concerned about drivers using local Boston road as short cuts around State and Federal highways.

In Massachusetts during the last three years of record keeping there have been 75 pedestrians’ deaths by automobiles. The issue also affects Worcester. The last pedestrian death in Worcester was Patricia LeMay who was killed on July 14, 2016.

 Governor Charlie Baker signed into law an amendments to Bill H 4331 which allows cities and town to lower the default speed limit from 30 miles per hours to 25 miles per hours in urban areas. This means that the Worcester City Council can bypass the entire Home Rule bureaucracy and by majority vote lower the speed limit for most streets in Worcester to 25 miles per hour.

Worcester too should strive to have zero pedestrian deaths or death of bicyclists or children at play.  Lowering the speed limit not only reduces the number of accident, but it also increases the likelihood of pedestrian survival.

Most pedestrians are relatively poorer people or disabled in some way or both. Getting City Council to do something against drivers might be like trying to get Congress to pass gun control. No driver wants to give up the right to make pedestrians get out of his way.

I am reminded of the complaint against a City boss who was accused of using profanity and a racial slur as he was exiting the City Hall garage.

To some extent it is also a racial issue as even Trump acknowledges there are racial economic disparities. Besides not having cars and walking, many poorer people live within the definition of urban areas as found in the Bill H. 4331.

 Given these facts on the ground, it is unlikely that the City Council will enact an emergency ordinance like they did with the dirt bikes. I am pretty sure cars kill more people than dirt bikes. The dirt bike riders were mostly Hispanic young men.

 Dirt bikes are certainly a nuisance, but the way the ordinance was enforced raises civil liberties issues.

  It is also unlikely that a champion will come forward on this speed limit issue like Councillor Rosen has done for the doggies owners.

The first step for safer reduced speed streets in Worcester is to have public hearings by City Council. The councilor this task would naturally fall to is Councillor Toomey, Chair of the Public Safety Committee. However given the social economic class of motorists as a group, no one in City Council will do anything.

Many in City Council will repeat the mantra, “The City police is doing a good job. We should not question what they do. Chief Sargent meets with crime Watch groups. We are not racist”

This is the time to lower the speed limit in urban areas and make the effort to attain the goal of zero pedestrian deaths.