Tomorrow (Thursday, February 4), at 10am, the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety will be holding a public hearing on all of the bills for the 2015-16 session that deal with police accountability, including Digital Fourth’s bill mandating bodycams and data collection on police stops. Join our gallant volunteers Sam T., Shekia S., Chris L., Jason L. and Robert C., in trying to make a difference; if you can make it, let us know and we can help you with your testimony!
The bills under consideration mostly propose improved training for police officers in de-escalation techniques, “emotional CPR”, and dealing with people with autism and mental illness. These are good things, but police training in departmental procedure alone can’t be the answer. Most police stops and shootings occur with police officers acting within the guidelines set by their departments; the problem is that those guidelines themselves can be very broad, and there’s essentially no accountability even if those guidelines are violated. If we’re going to get to a point where police officers routinely respect the constitutional rights of the people they stop on the street, there’s going to have to be meaningful accountability. Some officers should be deprived of their badges; some should be deprived of their liberty; and until that happens much more than it does now, we’ll keep seeing the parade of horrifying police shootings that cost over 1,100 members of the public their lives last year in the US.
Sign up at the Facebook event page
Read our Press Release
See all of the bills up for consideration
UPDATE: Here’s our testimony for the hearing.
