The U.S. Department of Justice hosted a community meeting in Worcester on Wednesday night following a scathing report on the city’s police department that prompted outrage and frustration among residents.
The Dec. 9 report found Worcester officers generally used excessive force in their interactions and engaged in “outrageous” conduct by allowing undercover officers to have sexual contact with suspected prostitutes.
Megan Marks, deputy chief of special litigation in for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division said officers also use Tasers and deploy police dogs to bite people unreasonably.
“We’re here tonight to hear from you about what is needed to address the problems,” Marks told the group, which met at the YWCA in Worcester. “We are confident that the problems that we found can be addressed.”
“These findings are not based on any one incident or event,” Marks added. “Instead, they existed because of longstanding problems in policy training, supervision and accountability.”
Worcester resident and community organizer Kevin Ksen said bullying and intimidation have long been part of the department’s playbook, including when residents propose police reforms.
“There’s been many times in Worcester where communities are seeking something like a citizen review board, and we’ve had 20 police cars blocking the entrance to City Hall, which was intimidating for residents to come and speak,” Ksen said.
He said he also hopes the Justice Department puts something official in writing, like a consent decree that would legally require the department to improve its practices.
“We need the DOJ to put something in place concrete, specific and detailed with court oversight to make sure that ... we can hold the city and the police department accountable,” he said.
About 100 residents attended the meeting, and officials divided the residents into three break-out groups to hear their suggestions.
William Gardiner, a former Worcester police officer said he was ultimately forced to leave because he would not go along with the department’s internal culture.
“I was bullied, battered, verbally assaulted on a daily basis from the police academy just because of the way I thought, the way I answered questions, the way I said, ‘No, we need to do it this way and not that way because this is the legal way,’” Gardiner said told GBH after the meeting.
Gardiner said he expects change to be an uphill battle, but that recognition is a start.
“It’s all about identifying that there is a problem, getting someone to agree that there’s a problem,” Gardiner said.
Other residents in attendance suggested increasing the number of female officers on the force and forming a civilian review board whose members are selected by residents instead of appointed by the city.
There were also calls to create more robust procedures for police officers to file complaints of improper conduct within the department and more attention to officers’ mental health.
Justice department officials also suggested 19 remedial measures in the report???, ranging from improving policies dictating when officers may use force to “a complete prohibition of engaging in sexual contact for law enforcement purposes.”
Justice department officials said the meeting was one of many community conversations it plans to have in Worcester.
The agency plans to compile the suggestions made by residents and bring them to police officials.
