AMHERST — A working group charged with examining racial inequities in policing is advising town officials to create a Resident Oversight Board to handle complaints about and hold hearings on actions by Amherst Police Department officers.
In the Community Safety Working Group’s final 74-page report delivered Monday to the Town Council, the oversight panel is one of a series of recommendations that members say would improve the lives of Amherst’s Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) residents and provide more equity, transparency and accountability for police.
Following unanimous acceptance of the report, and a pledge to begin working on strategies to implement its contents, Council President Lynn Griesemer praised the working group’s efforts.
“We can’t say thank you enough,” Griesemer said. “This is a piece, that as someone said, is a seminal moment in Amherst.”
Town Manager Paul Bockelman said officials will soon begin a path of evaluating the report and making recommendations starting at the council’s Nov. 8 meeting.
“The goal is to make positive change to make people safer in this community,” Bockelman said.
Bockelman said the working group has done groundbreaking work on issues of inclusion and public safety.
Members of the community also complimented the report at the meeting.
“This report is substantial, it’s well thought out and holds so much wisdom and expertise of the BIPOC residents of our town,” said Amara Donovan of Amity Place, who added that it’s time for town leaders to commit to anti-racism through action, investment and supporting the recommendations.
“It’s incredibly important that this be successful for the town,” said Ash Hartwell of Red Gate Lane. “It’s very important for the BIPOC people, and it’s very important for the town.”
Working Group Co-Chairwoman Brianna Owen told councilors that the proposed oversight board and suggested policy changes for the police department will ensure Amherst doesn’t become a community where a Black person can die in an interaction with officers.
“This part of our charge is so critical because these are things we can implement today, in the present, to make sure that we are not a community that reacts,” Owen said. “Let’s be proactive, so we are not the next place where this happens. Let’s not be the next place to go viral. Amherst is not that community.”
Owen said the proposals in the report will make Amherst more inclusive, make people from minority communities more comfortable and help dismantle white supremacy.
The Resident Oversight Board, which would have five members, four of whom are BIPOC, is a core element in the “Part B” report, which supplements a “Part A” report released earlier this year that recommended creating a Community Response for Equity, Safety and Service program as an alternative to the police department.
Earlier recommendations from the working group also included establishing an Amherst youth empowerment center and an Amherst cultural/multicultural center, and creating an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, each with qualified BIPOC leaders.
The final report recommends adopting a series of new police department policies, including with respect to use of force, prohibiting what are known as consent searches of stopped vehicles and eliminating low level and pretextual stops, those that are done because car windows have too much tint or a taillight is burnt out.
Law Enforcement Action Project, or LEAP, provided advice for these policy changes. Lisa Tennenbaum, a representative for LEAP, said prohibiting police from making stops related to minor infractions is a good thing. “You can lessen a lot of those tense interactions for both your minority community and your gendered community,” Tennenbaum said.
Other recommendations include an anti-racism trainer who would be part of the police department, the creation of an online dashboard of traffic stops by race and putting all traffic control enforcement under the community responders program, “leaving only jailable offenses to APD,” Owen said
Many of the aspects related to policy changes, and the creation of an oversight board, are likely to be subject to negotiations with the police department’s supervisors and patrol unions, Bockelman said, as was the case with the ongoing development of the community responders program.
Finally, the working group advises that the town engage in a process of racial healing and visioning to be facilitated by Barbara Love, a professor emerita of social justice education at the University of Massachusetts.
Members of the committee said they want to see the Town Council begin work on implementation soon.
“We can do this together, and we can do this now,” said working group Co-Chairwoman Ellisha Walker.
Committee member Debora Ferreira said the report has ideals to make the community a safer space, though she worries these may slip through the cracks if the successor Community Safety and Social Justice Committee doesn’t begin soon.
It’s also urgent to get a diversity, equity and inclusion director hired soon, member Pat Ononibaku said, as well as get community responders in place.
“We can no longer wait,” Ononibaku said. “This is an urgent issue.”
The report can be viewed online at https://bit.ly/3k2JMGr.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
