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Date: 8/23/2022
AMHERST – Amherst’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has determined the actions of a police officer captured in a recent viral video did not constitute an abuse of power.
DEI Director Pamela Young reported the finding at the Aug. 15 Town Council meeting where leaders from various Amherst departments discussed an interaction between nine youth and the Amherst Police Department (APD), including the 54-second video that has been making rounds on social media.
Young was tasked with drafting a report of the facts from the incident and determining if the officers’ actions equate to an abuse of authority. Young looked to the definition of abuse of power used by the U.S. Department of Justice as a standard for measuring the words and actions of the officers. Young said the “simple definition” states it is the misuse of a position of power to take unjust advantage of individuals, organizations or governments.
“The officer’s statements were clearly erroneous, but I do not believe that they equate to an abuse of power,” Young said. “In the future, we know that the town should be more proactive in communicating the status of these types of events both to the elected officials and to the public.”
The video clip from the nearly hour-long interaction shows Officer Tyler Martins telling the group, “Right now, as a juvenile, you don’t have rights at this point. You’ve lost it, you’re not an adult.” That quote and the rest of the video sparked immediate reactions from the community and the report from Young.
Young presented her report of the facts she had gathered, saying two officers, Martins and Lindsay Carroll, responded to a noise complaint call on July 5 at 12:32 a.m. at 683 Main St. Officers found nine youth, all under 18, of various ethnicities, and two cars, one with a flat tire that the youth said they were waiting for AAA to come fix. Officers sought identification because teens are not allowed to drive after midnight pursuant to Massachusetts General Law.
Young said no parent or guardian of the youth in the video has filed a complaint. The Human Rights Commission did file a complaint with the APD on July 21, alleging that the words spoken by Martins equated an abuse of authority. The Attorney General’s Office confirmed to Reminder Publishing that they also received a complaint about the incident.
Young said all teens were detained and released to a parent or guardian and the incident ended with no citations, summonses or arrests, no physical force was used, no injuries were sustained, no property damage occurred and no profanity was used. Young said the employment conditions of the officers are governed by departmental policies in their collective bargaining agreement, but said the officers are subject to “progressive discipline.” State laws and departmental policies prohibit the release of informaiton about personnel actions.
“The chief has followed the progressive discipline procedures outlined in the department policy,” Young said. “I reviewed the preliminary report from the police department on Aug. 11. To prepare for this report, I asked the questions presented by the Human Rights Commission. Did the actions of the officers or the statement of one of the officers equate to an abuse of power? Clearly, the officer’s statement is in error. Both the commonwealth’s constitution and that of the U.S. provide youths with rights and they prohibit the deprivation of those rights.”
Following Young’s report, Town Council President Lynn Griesemer turned to Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone. Livingstone told the council that he spoke with the officers to find out what happened one or two days after the video was released.
“[Martins] told me that he doesn’t know how the words came out, the way they came out,” Livingstone said. “He made the statement, he knows it was wrong, he regretted it the second it came out. […] Both of the officers feel bad about it and they hated the way that it went down in that first 54 seconds, but they both said that the encounter in the next 50 minutes or so was very cordial and they were able to explain to the youth why they weren’t able to let them go.”
Livingstone said despite the town not having a curfew, the minors became APD’s responsibility after responding to the call and the teens couldn’t legally drive home in either of the cars present.
Livingstone said the officers did not want the remaining juveniles to walk or take public transportation because they were the officer’s responsibility.
“If something were to happen to them after they had left, we would probably be having a different meeting on this very night perhaps wondering why those officers allowed the youth to leave,” Livingstone said. “The officers regret it and they feel horrible about it. We’re taking actions after this meeting that we’re going to take to remedy this.”
Livingstone said he wants to reach out and try to set up a meeting between the youth and the APD to “give the youth an opportunity to tell us how they felt about that night and certainly have us explain why we had to do some of the things that we had to do that they probably weren’t real happy with.”
District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier asked Livingstone what education has been done generally, saying that Amherst is actively trying to challenge a nationwide system of policing that is “not necessarily grounded in restoration and education.” Livingstone said recent discussions with Young, Town Manager Paul Bockelman and Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Security (CRESS) Director Earl Miller have led to Livingstone looking at possible department-wide trainings, specifically seeking additional trainings that are specific to juveniles.
Public comment at the meeting was mostly critical of the department and of Young’s report. One anonymous speaker spoke in favor of the department, calling them heroes and saying the department was being too harshly criticized.
“What I’ve seen in town in the last six or seven weeks is the Police Department coming together, I’ve seen CRESS coming to events, I’ve seen the police work with [the University of Massachusetts] … I’ve seen such positive interactions that I’m just flabbergasted that these people are so against our Police Department,” they said. “The language is so alarmist; terrorizing, accosting, harassing, they tried to say that it was all children of color when 40 percent of the people were white. I’m a survivor. For me, the Police Department are heroes, they saved my life. I’m not the only victim in town that feels like the Amherst Police Department are heroes and they’re being disparaged. I’m hearing all this stuff about defunding them and that scares me.”
Other Amherst residents said the previous Town Council discussion and report were too lenient and criticized what they described as the town’s slow response and investigation into the incident. John Bonifaz said he had hoped for accountability to be more of a focus from the department and the DEI report.
“Not every police officer in the town of Amherst is going to say to a group of youth, ‘You don’t have any rights.’ Not every police officer in the town of Amherst is going to wrongfully detain a group of youth,” Bonifaz said. “But when there’s not public accountability for the wrongful conduct of some police officers who do that, it undermines the trust of all police officers.”
Brianna Owen joined the meeting as a resident of North Amherst and applauded the person “brave enough to record the encounter.”
Owen disagreed with the DEI report and suggested investing in police reform as suggested by the Community Service Working Group.
“The bar for our [APD] can’t just be that no one was assaulted,” Owen said. “I truly wonder how many instances have happened like this off-camera. I find it hard to believe the [APD] wonders why there is mistrust within the community. I find it problematic nine youth were detained over a noise complaint for waiting for AAA to change their tire, and in the same meeting, we’re talking about how Party Smart can be used as a tool for students to throw parties and be respected by the police. If this is not white supremacy, I don’t know what is.”
Following the public comment portion, Bockelman made his first comments at the meeting concerning the incident.
“It’s important for us to call people to account, but it’s not appropriate for us to be attacking people,” Bockelman said. “One treats people with respect and helps them learn, the other shuts them down. […] I think our officers knew immediately when they crossed the line and they expressed that already. I’ve crossed the line and I would not want to be judged by incidents of dealing with my teenage children in my career. I need to be held accountable for missteps, but I don’t think I need to be defined by them.”
Carroll and Martins have been with the APD for five and four years, respectively. A public records request revealed no prior disciplinary records for either officer.