Hate Crimes, Body Cams,
Diversity, and Worcester Police
The Worcester Police under Chief Sargent has
become more transparent. They seem to have changed for the better without
affecting their effectiveness. It was
surprising when I heard activists in the Blacklives Matter movement say the
same. I hope I don’t have to eat these words.
Several
years ago the police in Worcester were hated. They used excessive force and
harassed the teenagers out of the downtown and other places. The Worcester
Human Rights Commission monitored the civilian complaints against the Worcester
Police and at the urging of the Progressive Labor Party and other groups the
police also began to report on incidents of hate crimes.
The
incidents of both complaints and hate crimes have gone down. Although there is
some questions regarding the methods of the statistical analysis, there seems
to be a real reduction of incidents.
Since the
Blacklives Matter movement there was a so called commitment by the City of Worcester
for the implementation of the use of body cams for the police. After petitions
to the City Council and the embarrassing admmittal in 2018 that there were no
concrete plans for body cams, Chief Sargent got the police union to agree to
pilot program for their use.
The chief
was uncertain at the Worcester Human Rights Commission 6-3-19 meeting about the
criteria that were to be used in the evaluation of the body cameras and
policing. He sounded like he was making up policy at the meeting, but one can
take away that he is in favor of the body camera use.
PLP
petitioned City Council that it establish policy for the use of body cameras.
This petition was sent to the Public Safety subcommittee chaired by Kate
Toomey.
This city
councilor has done nothing on the issue. I think she should resign from Public
Safety subcommittee for abrogation of her duties.
Recruitment
seems to be an area of confusion and double speak. The recruitment Sargent spoke of the many
things he has done including working with the Diversity Officer in the City
Manager’ office. However as long as ex-military get first hot at the police
positions, the recruitment of women and people of color is almost zero. There
are no Black females on the police force in Worcester.
We will see
soon enough if the transparency is long lasting. The body cams are evaluated in
November. The complaints, diversity, and
hate crimes next report is due in early 2020.
