Many Massachusetts police departments including Boston and Arlington see themselves distinct from departments around the country embroiled in conflicts with communities of color. But that does not mean that there is not distrust between cops and people of color here, especially after the widely viewed videotaped killings of black men and the gunning-down of police in Baton Rouge and Dallas.
Eight officers have been shot to death in two different cities under circumstances that some are describing as a war on police, a phrase that is particularly resonant in conservative media like Fox News.
Is there a war on police as some allege? It’s a question I put to Boston Police Commissioner William Evans.
“No I don’t think there’s a war. I understand why the Black Lives Matter are out there, but no, I wouldn’t say it’s a war on police.”
But the perception, said Evans, threatens to harm community-police relations built over many years; a relationship, he says, that his force is fighting hard to maintain.
“You know we’re going to continue to focus on what we do everyday, and that’s being out in the community, work strongly with them, and trying to keep the city as safe as possible. Hopefully working closely together we can get over this.”
BOSTON POLICE
A recent poll commissioned by the Boston Foundation found that one in three African-Americans in the city does not believe that cops treat people of color fairly. But another way of looking at the poll is that two out of three believe to the contrary. Yet police-community tensions are palpable in majority black communities in Mattapan and Roxbury. You can hear both anger and sympathy in a sampling of voices at the Dudley bus terminal after the recent killings of both black civilians and police officers:
“All the s--t they been doing to us for 30 or 40 years I don’t feel sorry for them”, said one heavily tattooed African-American man just before he boarded his bus. “One goes around, comes around. God getting tired of that. God sees what’s going on.”
A woman sitting nearby begged to differ and also couched her view in religious terms.
“I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad for those people because I don’t think life should be like that, [they] got killed like that. I don’t know why it happened but it’s sad. Black against white cause we all are one when it comes down to it in the name of Jesus we are all one in Christ.”
An older woman clutching a shopping bag and an asthma inhaler said in reference to police, “I just hope they do better. Our people are doing their best but the police need to get in line with that.”
Commissioner Evans insists that his force is doing precisely that. And at a Boston Police graduation ceremony at BU’s arena on June 30th, dozens of rookie officers marched in formation toward their seats. Relatives and friends greeted a rainbow of newly minted cops – brown, white and black — effusively.
Commissioner Evans warned the sixty or more graduates that they were entering into a brave new world where respect might be harder to come upon than ever.
And in an interview Evans said that Dallas, and now Baton Rouge, have made it harder to find recruits for the next class of police cadets.
“We’re trying to put on a class now and they’re dropping like flies as far as people all of a sudden don’t want to take this job, so this is going to hurt our recruitment effort.”
ARLINGTON POLICE
At remodeled Arlington Police headquarters, a framed photograph of black and white civil rights workers marching from Selma to Montgomery hangs on Police chief Frederick Ryan’s office wall. Ryan said it’s a reminder that everyone—police and the communities they serve--- have a long way to go, but will eventually get there.
“We can't allow what's going on nationally and internationally to divide police departments and their communities. And there's no more important time than now for communities to engage in dialogue with their police departments, provide constructive feedback and criticism where necessary, and to build bridges rather than to burn them.”
Ryan said that also means stamping out acts of racial hatred in Arlington, including responding to a recent incident of anti-black vandalism by a young white man disturbed by what he interpreted as an anti-police message:
A young man did deface a black lives matter sign at a local church here right at a busy intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Route 60. That case was diverted to a restorative justice setting and I sat in the circle where the offender admitted his wrongdoing to the parish and the parish was able to participate in a restorative contract where he had to go out and repair the harm he’s done to the community”
Arlington’s combined Latino and black population is about 16 percent and from them there have been few official complaints of police harassment of late. The town’s approach to policing contrasts greatly with other comparably sized departments nationally that relies heavily on militarized tactics.
Said Ryan: “ I was just at roll call this morning and was talking with officers and it’s important that we go back to our basics and that we’re tactically sound in every interaction out there in the field but that we don’t become warriors. We’re community guardians, we’re not warriors and we need to conduct ourselves in a tactically sound manner but not to forget our primary mission as community guardians.”
Chief Ryan’s community policing approach is reinforced on the streets.
“Just introduce yourself to people on the streets, you want people to know you.”
Captain James Curran heads the uniformed division of the Arlington Police Department. He said most officers in Massachusetts and nation-wide genuinely cares about people. I asked Curran if he had concerns about the very questionable shootings of African American men in St. Paul, MN and in Baton Rouge, LA, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.
“Absolutely. I mean if there’s a feeling that’s being generated out there, we have to deal with it. On the same token, it’s nice when we know there are people out there that’s got our backs to.”
And the citizens of this town –including residents of color—seemed to make that clear following the shootings of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge. In recent days residents have brought food, flowers, cards, letters, desserts and even a case of beer to Arlington Police headquarters to “show their appreciation” said Chief Ryan.
Chief Ryan in Arlington and Commissioner Evans in Boston both acknowledge that it will take a special effort to maintain trust with communities of color and other citizens in a national atmosphere of tensions and recriminations against both Black Lives Matter and police.
