Amherst Social Justice Committee Pushes Back on Police Oversight Delay
The social justice committee plans to attend an Aug. 25 meeting to press for a resident oversight board after the police standards commission failed to address local concerns.
Members of Amherst's Community Safety and Social Justice Committee expressed frustration this week that the town's Government, Organization, and Legislation Committee appears to be questioning whether a resident oversight board for police is needed, rather than moving forward with deciding what form it should take.
The GOL Committee was supposed to choose between two models for a Resident Oversight Board: an investigative model, like those in Boston, Cambridge, and Springfield, or an advisory model in which police would investigate their own complaints. Instead, during a meeting earlier in the week, councilors Lynne Griesemer and George Ryan raised whether the board is necessary now that the state has established the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission to handle police misconduct complaints.
Chair Debora Ferreira said the CSSJC sent a letter to the full Town Council on August 6 explaining why local complaints would not qualify for POST review and that the town attorney's arguments against creating a board did not hold up. "POST cannot address many of the complaints that arise in town, particularly those rooted in race," Ferreira said, according to meeting notes. She added, "In this community there is resistance from the police and the Town Council to give BIPOC people a voice and to acknowledge that there are people locally who are marginalized and intimidated by the police."
Amherst resident Martha Hanner, who attended the GOL meeting, told the committee that many concerns fall below POST's threshold and would not be handled by the state commission. "There are people on that committee who just don't understand what the levels of harassment and microaggressions are in this town," Hanner said.
Erica Piedade, also a committee member, said the comprehensive letter addressed all concerns raised by the town attorney. "We answered all of their concerns and questions," she said. "It is so disrespectful of the work that we do, representing the work of the Community Safety Working Group, the Liberatory Visioning Project, the Human Rights Commission, and the League of Women Voters. The town manager and Town Council speak of taking input from the community but then ignore it."
The CSSJC voted to request being added to the agenda for the GOL Committee's next meeting on August 25, and all members said they would attend.
In other business, CRESS director Camile Theriaque reported that the Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service program expects to receive a $200,000 grant from the state for equitable public safety approaches. The funds must be spent by the end of the fiscal year, though the town may not receive them before November. Theriaque said the plan includes spending on training and possibly hiring a temporary clinician to work with responders on mental health calls.
Piedade noted that Town Manager Paul Bockelman has been meeting with dispatch about CRESS call volume, which reached only 10 calls in June. She recommended the council share dispatch data with the committee and CRESS, saying that examining the last six months of logs would show whether CRESS is being excluded from calls it should handle. "CRESS and DEI are the departments that the town holds up to show that it is supportive of diversity and social justice, but that is not reflected in the funding," Piedade said.