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Date: 11/8/2022
AMHERST – The Community Safety and Social Justice Committee (CSSJC) and the Amherst Town Council hosted a joint meeting on Nov. 1 to discuss the CSSJC’s ongoing campaign for restorative justice measures following the July 5 incident wherein an Amherst Police Department (APD) officer was caught on film telling a minor “you don’t have any rights” while responding to a noise complaint. The meeting featured 24 panelists and 75 public attendees, making it one of the most watched meetings in recent history.
This meeting was the fourth in a series of meetings between the two bodies. The saga began with the CSSJC’s letter to the council demanding certain reparative initiatives such as the establishment of an independent civilian review board of police conduct, a victim’s compensation fund and an official apology from the officers involved, as well as the department as a whole. This sparked debate and conflict among the council as to how to proceed.
At a previous meeting, Councilor Michelle Miller made a motion to allow members of the CSSJC, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and the African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA) to review the incident in conjunction with the town’s Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and town attorney, with the goal of making a recommendation to the council as to the best course of action. Before this motion could be voted on, it was postponed by Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke, who invoked Section 2.10C of the Amherst Home Charter, postponing the discussion to the Nov. 1 meeting.
New evidence was brought to light through William Stewart’s letter to the council regarding the incident. Stewart is a Leverett resident with children in the Amherst Regional Public Schools (ARPS) system, and he was one of two adults at the scene that evening, called there by his son to help fix a flat tire on his car.
Stewart arrived after the police officers arrived, and after the “no rights” statement was made. In his letter, he stated that he witnessed five forms of discrimination that night, in addition to the officer’s false statement.
Stewart alleged that the first form of discrimination was the police’s “aggressive, multi-car response to a noise complaint in a low-income neighborhood,” something that would never happen in “Amherst Woods or other more affluent Amherst neighborhoods, nor would the treatment of young people in those neighborhoods have been the same.”
The second allegation was age-based, based on the officer’s statement that the youths had no rights because they were minors, a legal inaccuracy. Stewart said “the youth were being harassed for not producing identification, which they are not required to do by law.”
Third was a racial and language-based discrimination allegation in the form of officer’s ignoring one of the youths’ mothers who was offering to drive them all home to avoid trouble. The mother only spoke Spanish, and because the officers did not speak Spanish, they ignored her and continued to detain the youths until Stewart, a white man, arrived and reportedly “changed their tenor” and released the youth from detention.
The fourth allegation was racial discrimination; six of the nine teenagers are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and have been afraid to speak out against the police because of potential retaliation. Stewart noted that his son is afraid to speak out as well, as most of his friends are BIPOC.
The fifth form of discrimination Stewart listed allegedly occurred during his conversation with the officers. He said that officers justified their aggressive response because of their age.
“The youth were being detained because they could have been anybody, even college students. They tried to commiserate with me about how much trouble college students make … It was as if we would share a common bond of animosity towards college students and that this treatment of local youth was justified unless they could prove that they were not in college,” Stewart said.
CSSJC Co-Chair Dr. Demetria Shabazz detailed Stewart’s letter and spoke of the harm these events have caused in the youths’ lives.
“Experiencing a traumatic event can harm a person’s sense of safety, sense of self and ability to regulate emotions and navigate relationships … trauma can even impact how we view God … according to a 2020 study, 44 percent of Black participants persist with depression and anxiety, and only one in three Black Americans in need of mental health care will receive it,” she said.
Shabazz described the CSSJC’s impatience in the face of what she called the council’s pattern of dragging out the issue without resolution.
“We’re coming up on Nov. 5, four months since the incident. Concerning what you all charged us to do, this is clearly not what we were supposed to be doing, right? Indeed, this whole exercise can be seen of a waste of time if there is no commitment to change policing practices and change the culture of this town’s government,” she said.
Six motions were presented at the meeting, all different approaches to the same action item.
The first was an amended version of Michelle Miller’s original motion, to create an ad hoc committee with three town councilors, two members each from the CSSJC, HRC and AHRA and a non-voting APD member to draft a recommendation to the town, focusing building a consensus on the events of July 5 and its aftermath, and drafting a recommendation to the Town Council for an action plan to move forward with restorative and reconciliatory justice.
After lengthy discussion and public comment periods, the council went to vote on Miller’s motion. It was supported by the CSSJC and several councilors, but narrowly failed to pass, with six councilors for and seven against.
After various withdrawals and compromises on the other proposals, the other motion of relevance was council President Lynn Griesemer’s, the sixth and final motion on the agenda, which incuded implementing a reconciliation plan and proposal for a resident oversight board, among other things.
“Undertaking a review of public safety protocols for responding to and handling public safety calls involving minors in order to recommend changes to these protocols if appropriate, conduct research into the feasibility of a justice compensation fund, explore options for a Youth Empowerment Center as part of the Capital Improvement Plan, develop protocols for active engagement by community responders, develop and offer racial equity training, know your rights training, and other options for additional training to support TOA employees and members of the public, and raise awareness in the community of these efforts.”
The original motion requests the town manager do this by working with the DEI Department while “drawing upon the ongoing work of the CSSJC, HRC and AHRA,” but keeping the tasks within the jurisdiction of the town manager’s office.
This differed from Miller’s motion, which would have created a coalition-style committee to create a recommendation for town council action.
This difference prompted Councilor Ellisha Walker to state her thoughts on the motion’s language.
“I would feel more comfortable with this motion if it required conversation with the other groups. Like if there was language around that, instead of ‘drawing upon the ongoing work,’ because the ‘ongoing work’ has been in front of us, and we can clearly see how that doesn’t always serve, and that, again, it would be more progressive if it was a joint process in which people could actively participate, not just looking at reports and writing,” Walker said.
Griesemer acknowledged Walker’s point and modified the language of the motion by stating that the town manager will be “discussing with and drawing upon the ongoing work” of the CSSJC, HRC and AHRA.
However, by this time the meeting had stretched almost 6 ½ hours, and the clock was approaching 12:30 a.m., and before the motion could be voted on, Councilor Shalini Bahl-Milne moved to adjourn the meeting on the grounds that everyone was too tired to think properly.
She also moved to postpone the discussion.
It was continued to Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. and coverage of this discussion will appear in the Nov. 17 edition of The Reminder.