Second Community Forum On Public Safety: Testimony Emphasizes Need For New Budget Priorities And Community Oversight Of Police

A public forum on public safety and the Amherst police was held as a Zoom webinar on Saturday, January 16 from 3-5 PM and was recorded.  That recording can be viewed here. This was the second of two public forums organized by the Town’s Community Safety Working Group (CSWG).  The first forum was held on Wednesday, January 13.  A summary can be found here. The recording of that forum will eventually be posted on the CSWG web page. 

Panelists: CSWG members Paul Wiley, (Chair), Brianna Owen, Russ Vernon-Jones,  Elisha Walker, Debora Ferreira,  Tashina Bowman. Pat Ononibaku, Jennifer Moyston, Staff Assistant. 

Members of the public who gave testimony at the forum were: Ashwin Ravikumar, Tyson Rose,  Demetria Shabazz, Amilcar Shabazz, Jonathan Sivel,  Lydia Irons, Lydia Spiegel,  Alissa Brewer, Angelica Castro, Lissa Pierce Bonifaz, Ludmilla Pavlova Gillham, Tem Blessed, and Sid Ferreira

(Editor’s note:  the zoom webinar format does not allow viewers, aside from the members of the panel,  to know who else is on the call. Nor does it indicate how many are viewing/listening.  During the proceedings, panelists referred to members of the Town Council in the audience, and except for the one who spoke (Councilor Alissa Brewer (at large)), we do not know who they are.  The Indy requested  information on who and how many attended the forum from the Committee early last week and has yet to receive a response.  Should the Committee  eventually provide the numbers and/or the names of those on the call we will post them in an update here).

The forum was moderated by Jennifer Moyston,  Town Community Participation Officer. 

The Public Forum
Moyston opened the forum with an homage to the area’s indigenous heritage and to the contributions of African Americans to the Town.   Moyston asked that those giving testimony defer to BIPOC people and allow them to speak first, and the forum mostly followed that request.  No time limits were placed on those who testified.

Paul Wylie, CSWG Chair welcomed the participants, telling them that these forums provided the CSWG with an opportunity to hear the thoughts and ideas of members of the community regarding  their experiences with the members of the Amherst Police Department and that this would help the committee to come up  with specific recommendations  for the reform of the Town’s oversight and organizational structures for public safety.

He summarized the purpose and charge of the CSWG as follows:

(a) make recommendations on alternative ways of providing public safety services to the community and
(b) make recommendations on reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst Police Department.

The Working Group can achieve this by:

• Learning from previous work done by the Town through previous studies and committees;
• Examining current public safety services and how they are delivered;
• Reviewing policies, complaints, and current training practices;
• Exploring models of resident oversight of police departments;
• Collecting data from people’s experiences in Amherst;
• Engaging the communities most impacted by policing to develop alternatives and identify solutions to diagnosed problems;
• Investigating alternative models such as:
  • Eugene, Oregon. Cahoots (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Street);
  • Albuquerque. Community Safety Alternative;
  •  Denver STAR (Support Team Assisted Response)                                  

• Submission of a written report to the Town Manager by January 15, 2021 on alternative options to public safety services currently provided by the Amherst Police Department. (note: as of January 15 this report has not yet been submitted)
• Submission of a written report to the Town Manager by June 30, 2021 on recommendations for resident oversight and for policy reforms for the Amherst Police Department.

Committee Questions
The committee asked those giving testimony to consider the following questions.

• What experiences have you (or your relatives or friends) had with the Amherst Police Department?
• Have you experienced or been made aware of situations in which white people and BIPOC people were treated differently by the Amherst Police Department?
• What changes would you like to see or recommend about how community safety services are provided in Amherst?
• What, if any situations currently being addressed by the police do you believe could be more effectively or appropriately dealt with through non-threatening, alternative public safety services?

The Testimony
Several common themes emerged from the testimony. These included shared stories of fraught encounters with the police,  especially on the part of youth of color in Amherst, and discussion of alternatives to policing. The main themes raised were: 

• Heartfelt appreciation for the work of the CSWG
• Affirmation for stories shared about fraught experiences with the Amherst Police (APD) and UMass Police (UMPD), especially but not exclusively by residents of color
• The commonplace surveillance, tracking and harassment of youth of color by the police. 
• Experiences of People of Color and White people in the Town of Amherst are quite different but many White people have a hard time comprehending these differences in experience.
• Experiences with the police by People of Color are often frightening and intimidating , especially in the aftermath of the murders of  George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but police officers and some town officials have difficulty comprehending the perspective of People of Color
• The failure of some Town Councilors to acknowledge this difference in experience or to accept the complaints of residents of color as credible has been hurtful and has deepened mistrust of the government and the police
• The need to reallocate a portion of the police budget to provide support needed for mental health and youth services in town
• Being stopped by the police is a common experience for People of Color
• These stops almost uniformly produce discomfort and  anxiety 
• The need for a place to go to take complaints/concerns about the police that is not the police themselves
• The need for citizen oversight of the police
• The need for alternatives to policing including non-police agencies that can provide needed human services
• The problems under consideration by the CSWG are far more expansive, complex, and nuanced than can be addressed in the time allotted for their work, and hence this work must be an ongoing process

Ashwin Ravikumar is a professor at Amherst College and a member of the Town’s Energy and Climate Action Committee. He said that as a person of color living and working in Amherst he does not feel that the police make him safe.  Indeed it is just the opposite. He noted that the history of policing is rooted in the defense of White Supremacy and that remains the case today in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. He called for bold action and proposals from the CSWG, urging them to defund a substantial portion of the police budget to divert funds to services that serve peer-led crisis responses that are accountable to the people who are most impacted by policing.  There’s a lot of good work being done in other towns around the Valley on  mobile crisis response and peer- led resources, and there are area  experts who might be willing to speak directly with the CSWG on these issues he said.  He encouraged the Committee  to check out M.H First in Sacramento, an anti police-terror project that offers an excellent alternative model to policing. He said that it is absolutely vital that the police be outside of any process that the CSWG adopts, noting that at least one of the models that CSWG is  considering is instead quite collaborative with the police. He said that CSWG ought to be looking  for programs that do what the police cannot and suggested the following standards to seek: 

1. Programs need to be independent – not in any way controlled by the police
2. Peer-led programs are best or addressing specific needs like those of people who use drugs or who are unhoused.

He asked : “what will it take to build trust with black and brown people in Amherst?  This can only happen with defunding of  the police” . We must reduce the footprint of the police and replace some of the things that they are tasked with doing with excellent peer-led services and eliminate the criminalization of a lot of what people  do. We need to reallocate the resources that we have in the town so that our budget matches our stated  priorities.”

Tyson Rose is a Professor at the University of Hartford. He concurred with everything that Ravikumar said. He lived  in Amherst from 2008-2020 and had many different kinds of interactions with the police as a student, as a staff member at UMass and as the Residential Director for the Amherst  A Better Chance Program (ABC), where he had  considerable opportunities  to observe interactions of  the police with youth of color.  He repeated Ravikumar’s assertion that the primary purpose of policing is to support the foundations of a White supremacist society., Therefore, all  interactions with the police by People of Color need to be understood within that culture.

He shared an anecdote about a time that he was pulled over by the police near the ABC House.  He was quite anxious and was extremely careful to clearly comply with every directive from the officer.  He remembers most clearly the officer’s inability to understand why he was nervous and how the officer seemed to be irritated by his discomfort.   The officer kept insisting that Amherst cops are not like other cops and that Rose had no need to fear. But Rose concluded that what this police officer was doing was continuing  to discount Rose’s  experience as a man of color and berate him for being ill at ease.  He noted this inability to understand the perspective of People of Color is too common among police.

Rose spoke briefly of the experiences of the residents of the ABC House with the police with another anecdote.  One of the 14 year old students was trying to get home (most ABC students  live out of state) and when he tried to board the bus there was some issue about him not having ID. Instead of calling the ABC House the police were called. Then,  instead of checking in with his local guardians, the police proceeded to harass the kid and tried to bait him into a physical confrontation.  (Rose noted that the case is well  documented).   He said that this  kind of harassment happens regularly, and  it’s dehumanizing. But this is part of the culture of policing in a white supermacist society. They are not here to protect us. They are here to protect the community from us, he said.  And consider how traumatizing this is for the kids for whom such harassment is all too common. We need to make that old system obsolete and to do that, we need new structures, new approaches, new ways of thinking.

Demetria Shabazz is a professor at UMass and President of the Board Of Directors at Amherst Media.  She said, what is missing at this moment is a focus group that goes where the people are, because right now this committee is not connecting with all of the constituencies that it needs to hear from. Similarly there is a need for focus groups where there is simultaneous translation (e.g. Spanish or Khmer or other languages that are used locally().  She asked that the same effort be put forward,  directed at those community groups and populations that are not present this afternoon.

She suggested that what the Town needs in place of policing is mobile units for wellness checks and mental health calls. She spoke of the reluctance of People of Color to call the police, and she said that If we had such civilian mobile units, that people would be less hesitant to call for services that they need.  She said that she knows People of Color who have been deathly afraid to ask for help when a wellness check was needed or when mental health was the issue.  This becomes even more critical in the time of COVID, and it would be shifting money from one of the largest budget items in the town (policing) into an area of desperate need.  

She concluded by saying that she fears for her own sons (one in his 20’s and one a teen) and what will become of them (or of the other young men of color in town) when they are stopped by the police. And they will be stopped, she said,  because they are targeted and profiled.  And they are changed by their encounters with policing. So what do we want to do about this, she asked?   Do we want to perpetuate this or do we want change?

She concluded by saying that she has been stopped on multiple occasions both by town police and by UMass police, for seemingly trivial matters (e.g. to inform her that her registration would soon expire).  Speaking directly  to the members of the Council on the call  she said “it’s enormously frustrating when I hear Councilors say – well I just don’t believe that things like this happen in Amherst – and I am telling you that they do – that they happen to me”.

Speaking directly to the members of the Council on the call she said “it’s enormously frustrating when I hear Councilors say – well I just don’t believe that things like this happen in Amherst – and I am telling you that they do – that they happen to me”.

Amilcar  Shabazz is a professor at UMass and a former member of the Amherst School Committee.  He said that  since the deaths of  George Floyd and Breonna Taylor he has received many calls from members of the community with complaints and concerns about experiences they have had with the UMass police.  And he wanted to know what the Town was going to do with this?   He charged the CSWG to include both the UMPD and APD in its consideration of the problems of policing in town. 

He shared an anecdote about when he had hit a deer with his car. The deer ran away but out of concern for the wellbeing of the animal he called APD when he got home. The officer who came to the house (who was a man of color)  was helpful, cordial and put him at ease.  He said that he was not sharing this to counter what previous speakers had said, but to point out that this issue is incredibly complicated and nuanced and  won’t be resolved by the efforts of  a single working group.  This work needs to be ongoing.  And to do that, we need a citizen’s commission on police practices to continue the work.  He concluded by wondering why, since even APD Chief Livingstone had endorsed this idea of citizen oversight  back in the summer of 2020, why it’s taking so long to get the idea off the ground.

Jonathan Sivel is an educator in the Amherst Public Schools. He echoed calls for an ongoing citizen’s commission on police practices and for the Town taking some responsibility for looking into issues with the UMass police.  He said that he appreciates  the courage of those who testified at this hearing.  Looking at the history of far-right movements (especially considering the recent insurrection at the Capitol) the  complicity of the police is a central part of the success of these movements he said.   He highlighted the different reactions of police to left and right wing actions, and to White people vs. to People of Color and noted that police from around the country, including those from Massachusetts  are under investigation for their role in the insurrection and assault on the Capitol.  He reiterated that some of our town leaders have expressed that they have good relations with the police (which may well reside in their own race and class privilege) and who have previously dismissed as not credible the stories that they heard from residents of color. Speaking to Councilors on the call he asked  them to  “take seriously what members of the community are telling you.”  Noting that there was a caravan from Western Mass that went to participate in the protests at the Capitol, on January 6, he called on Councilors  to release a  statement guaranteeing that no Amherst police officers participated in the assault on the Capitol.

Lydia Irons is a founding member of Defund 413 Amherst. She said that her group collected a considerable body of data on public safety expenditures prior to the summer budget meetings and she offered to share that information with CSWG.  She noted that across two budget meetings, 52 people participated and called for a reduction and reallocation of the police budget  She offered to share that testimony with CSWG. She said, “we have a lot of data that show where the police spend their money and spend their time, data that show that the APD polices Amherst differentially, with a lot of focus around the apartments and with a lot of their calls focusing on mental health issues.  We have plenty of data that show that intervention of police in mental health issues does not reduce risk.”

She noted that she has had several interactions with the APD over the last decade, mentioning a time when a friend got lost in the woods near the Amethyst Brook recreation area. She met the police there who spoke condescendingly of women who go off in the woods alone. She felt that their response was hostile and that the search was called off prematurely.

Regarding the Town Council she said that she has heard multiple members speak in defense of the APD and speak dismissively of those who have had problematic encounters with the police.   She also noted that the Council is putting a lot of pressure on CSWG to come up with palatable recommendations in a hurry  and is hopeful that the Council will listen to the report (as they don’t seem to listen to people in the community).  She concluded that  Defund 413 will continue to mobilize around the necessary changes.

Lydia Spiegel spoke  as a mother of two boys (one of whom is Black) and of  seeing their different experiences including with the police.  She concurred with previous speakers that the footprint of the police in town needs to be reduced and that the Town ought to seek ways to make the police less threatening and more approachable than they currently are.   She affirmed that her own son had been the subject of over-tracking and harassment by the police, recounting a commonly heard  experience in which her Black son and a friend (Ages 13-14) had been hanging out downtown when someone reported them to the police. She said that a cruiser arrived with lights flashing and then two more and that the response felt out of proportion to the actual circumstances.  She said that this kind of response has considerable impacts, not just on the child, but also on the perceptions of people who are watching.  She noted that the parents of the children were not contacted about the incident.  She reported that she went multiple times to the police station to try to explain how her son experienced this encounter.  She said that she was treated respectfully, but that the police could not grasp why this response was problematic or why it felt intimidating and threatening to the kids.  And she noted that it was intimidating for her (a White woman) to go to the police station to report a problematic encounter, so she can imagine what it must be like for a person of color.  She concluded that we don’t have a safe place for reporting abuses by the police or concerns about them.

Alisa Brewer is an at-large Town Councilor who previously served on the Amherst Select Board.  She reported that the Town previously had a Police Stops Committee which was established by Town Meeting.  Its modest charge was to design a form for tracking information about police stops.  The committee membership  was majority People of Color.  She said that as far as she knows, nothing much came out of that committee and that there was essentially no follow up, and that this underscores that the efforts of the CSWG cannot be a “one and done” process and that their work needs to be ongoing. Brewer said that  she regrets that she had not been proactive in demanding results from the Police Stops Committee and that she won’t let that happen again.

Angelica Castro, a mother of  four kids who identify as BIPOC, spoke of her positive interactions with the APD.  She spoke of two instances where, on the advice of a friend, she called the police for help when one of her sons was truant.  She said that she was at a loss of what to do and that the police were really helpful and positive and helped in getting her son to return to school.  She said this encounter built trust and wished that happened more often  and that the police could be present in the lives of Amherst youth in a positive way.  She emphasized  that she did not mean to dismiss or diminish the stories of people who testified to experiences with the police that were fraught. 

Ravikumar at this point interjected that he believed that in the aftermath of Geroge Floyd and Breonna Taylor, that the answer to our local problems is not to support connections with a violent state (i.e. seeking closer relations with the police) or to appeal for better connections with the police but rather to build alternatives to policing.

Lissa Pierce Bonifaz recounted a personal experience with the UMPD and an hostile officer at a traffic stop and asked the Committee to consider the problems of UMPD in their deliberations and recommendations.

Ludmilla Pavlova Gillham spoke as the mother of two boys now grown.
She noted that while her boys had only positive encounters with the police when they were young, the story changed when they were young adults. She recounted tales of harassment at traffic stops by UMass police.  She also shared the story of when her son was working as a security guard at a local bar and there was a violent encounter with a drunken customer and the police were called and when they arrived the customer said he was attacked by the son’s fellow guard who was Black, and the police, believed the drunken White man and  arrested the Black security guard.   She said that it is very difficult to deal with bad behavior on the part of the police without a formal process that allows for holding them accountable. She supports calls for more coordination with the Town of oversight of UMass police and the need for a citizens commission.

Tem Blessed is a graduate of UMass. He spoke of his own experience of being arrested  and of the need for the police to learn how to de-escalate and to hold each other accountable.

Sid Ferreira is an administrator at UMass, a social justice educator and the current Resident Director at the Amherst ABC House.   He spoke of his 35 plus years in the community going back to his days as a UMass student. He said that in all those years he has not personally had any problematic encounters with the APD.  He spoke of the need to build relationships and to strive for a community based policing, that is, policing where the police are in a positive relationship with the people whom they serve.  He voiced concern about the increasing militarization of police forces across the country and how the training that they seem to be receiving is not about building or nurturing relationships or even knowing the community, but rather starts in a place that is alienated from the people who are supposedly being served – positioning them as suspect or dangerous.  He said that we have so many different communities in town, and there needs to be outreach and connection with every one of them.  The police need to know who the people are in each of  these communities and who are the people they can talk to: who are the people with standing,  who are the elders,  who are the people who have public respect. 

Committee Member Tashina Bowman noted that four people had talked about their experience with UMass police and that this needed to be taken seriously.  She also requested that the Committee set aside time to talk about the experiences of members of the committee as well. 

Committee Member Debora Ferreira recommended that the Committee undertake follow-up with people who testified because “ we have heard a lot of important things and people have shared a lot of important resources”.

All members of the committee expressed gratitude and respect for all who testified thanking them for their courage and their input.  They encouraged the public to continue to submit testimony (signed or anonymous) through the Committee’s website and to  spread the word and encourage people to use the online input tool. 

 Written testimony can be submitted here.