Borrowed from Chief Frank Frederick, Yarmouth Police -- Best write up and explanation we have seen on this so called Police Reform!
Read this, then Call Govoner Baker, Lt. Governor Polito, your Senator and your Rep....then send them all emails....DO IT NOW!!!
“Urgent Call”
Please call Governor
Baker’s office (617-725-4005) and tell him to Fix the “Police Reform
Bill” to protect the publics safety, or to Veto it. Listen until the prompts and leave a message.
This legislation has many bad parts and the few that are good are so poorly thought out that it will take 10 years to fix it. Please read below for a little more insight. Share this post if you can. Thanks, Frank
Mass Police Reform?? Seriously???
This is a list of 15 valid concerns regarding the ridiculous Massachusetts Police Reform Bill. If this thing turns into law, our communities will certainly be negatively impacted as well as the livelihood and wellbeing of our police offices.
Governor’s Bill was 12 pages - created Police Standards and Certification Boards to review sustained complaints.
This Bill is 130 pages of anti-police activism - it causes chaos and uncertainty in every city and Town in the State.
Our State is trying to become a super employer of every city and town employee - the legislature is stealing from communities the power to independently set standards for their PDs, and to hire, fire and discipline local employees.
The State is giving itself the power to certify local agencies - and if the agencies don’t comply with the demands of the state- then the state can levy fines and assessments against our communities.
The State is setting up a commission of 9 politically appointed people - many anti police advocates - and giving them complete power to determine if an officer can ever work in this field again. Our best people could be plucked and put out of commission without any say from the City.
Every other professional review board in the State, and most of the nation, is made up of people in the same profession, with expertise in that profession - here - 6 of the 9 must NOT BE law enforcement or former law enforcement, and no employee of the commission can ever have been law enforcement - it is made up to ensure that mostly nobody with any expertise or experience or an informed judgment will be involved. (Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians - all licensing boards are made of similarly licensed professionals - except one, us.
Our State wants to create database searchable by public invading privacy rights of police - listing confidential personnel records such as reprimands, complaints, reasons for separation, even arrests or complaints - whether or not sustained - which for every other person would be private information.
This bill Creates power to control local dept. policies on evidence, juvenile operations, criminal investigations - these are local PD issues - and state legislature wants to be a super employer and direct how we conduct police operations locally.
This bill provides a paltry 2-hours annual training for officer wellness and suicide prevention - but also provides people convicted of multiple felonies ability to expunge their criminal records - it is more than insulting.
This bill suggests that even if officers are cleared of wrongdoing after due process appeals, the appointed Commission can still decertify and take away a livelihood if they decide differently - this is a clear violation of due process rights and will lead to thousands of legal challenges - all of which will have to be defended and paid for by local communities.
This bill sets new use of force standards that are not in line with nationally recognized standards - putting officers’ lives at risk, and which will create lawsuits and liability for police and communities - a boom for lawyers suing them - and the law even provides for attorney’s fees for them. This is no accident, as the bill also puts a civil rights lawyers that sue police on the commission.
This bill changes our civil service law to prohibit filing appeals of discipline if based on action by new commission - in other words, a complete dismantling of civil service rights.
This bill prohibits school officials reporting confirmed gang affiliations to police - even the school resource officer is prohibited from notifying their own PD. How does this make our schools and our kids safer?
This bill gives every PD in the state one year to provide commission with every complaint ever filed against any officer who ever worked there, along with all other data and facts associated with every complaint ever filed. This is an administrative nightmare, not to mention the mess that will follow when the commission attempts to act on and re-open previously resolved internal matters.
This bill creates a committee to study qualified Immunity, with new legislation to be filed by Sept. 2021 - forecasting that they are in the process of getting rid of that needed protection and will expose every officer and every community to huge liability. Don’t be fooled by this shell-game. Our citizens, all of our public officials - including particularly our Department heads - will be impacted harshly by this - and our citizens will need to pay for dearly for it.