LETTER: TOWN NEEDS RESIDENT SAFETY COMMITTEE TO WORK WITH POLICE

I am writing with my thoughts about creating some kind of resident committee to work with the police on community safety. 

· Words matter:

o “Civilian” implies a binary concept, civilian vs. military. We need to dismantle all real and symbolic associations of the police with military, starting with avoiding the word “civilian.” And perhaps better than quietly avoiding the word “civilian” would be to explicitly say that we are not talking about “civilian” because that implies that the police are military, which they are not. 

o In Amherst the police are not warriors but instead should be protectors and helpers. I feel we can’t make that point often enough. If people don’t think the police are protectors, let’s have that discussion. What changes would enable their role to be that of protecting public safety for all?

o I suggest avoiding the word “oversight” because it implies one group having supervision and/or power over another. We need to use language that is not about power or control and more about problem solving. The degree of authority such a committee would have depends on the formal scope of the committee, as approved by the Council, not on the words in its name.

o Obviously, in Amherst we avoid the word “citizen” except when talking about voting or something specifically related to citizenship like passports.

o How about something like “Resident Safety Committee?” This would broaden the mandate beyond just the police to include the role of mental health workers, social workers, intervention specialists, public works, firefighters and paramedics, teachers and programs supporting the needs of low-income residents. Such a concept, a safety committee, could help make connections between police and other agencies and individuals who are responsible in different ways for our safety. It might inspire a bit of reflection and listening on the part of the police about what community safety means in Amherst. Based on their presentation at the July 6 Council meeting, the police seem to understand it is time to listen. Talking about safety allows for conversation about race, but also about a lot of other things.

· I suggest a process to clarify what safety means in Amherst to different people and different communities. This could be one use of some of the $80,000 that Paul has helpfully allocated. This discussion of safety needs to be broader than safety related to policing. What do people need from the Town to feel and to be safe? What is safety? Is it the same thing to different people? Do children have unique safety needs, different from adults? What about people with insecure income or no income? 

· Talking about safety does not mean not talking about race. Amherst needs to have a conversation about race that goes beyond the police and has to do with the schools, public spaces, who gets appointed to committees and which voices are listened to. The conversation about a committee to work with the police needs to be understood as one part of the work, not the whole thing.

· Do we need to look at how we respond to 911 calls so the first response is always accompanied by the police? 

· It is a tragic fact that white people and people of color have extremely different life experiences, in Amherst and everywhere, including their relationship with the town and various town agencies. As a person with white privilege and someone who has a level of public agency, I’ve had very positive interactions with individual police officers. But I have Black friends who have not, and their stories are credible and consistent. Their experiences need to be heard and, I feel, believed. We need a safe place where people can share their bad experiences and not be embarrassed or blamed. Having listened to Black friends, I have some thoughts about what those bad experiences are about, but better to hear it from the people who’ve had bad experiences than from me.

· It is my childhood memory, which could be flawed, that in the 1950s the Amherst police did not have guns. It is a memory from before traffic lights, when police officers stopped traffic each day so school children could safely cross North Pleasant and Amity Streets to get to school. Particularly when we learn police have not actually used their guns for many years, why do police need to carry guns, all the time, no matter what they are doing? Perhaps Amherst could lead the way in creating an unarmed or less armed police force. 

Meg Gage

Meg Gage is the now-retired founding director of the Peace Development Fund and the Proteus Fund, national organizations based in Amherst that organize within philanthropy to advance campaigns related to peace, human rights and democracy.