AMHERST – The Amherst Community Safety Working Group (CSWG) met with the Town Council to present the second part of their charge in helping recommend a better and safer Amherst through alternative public safety services and reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst Police Department.

The CSWG has been meeting weekly since it was formed in 2020 to create recommendations on alternative methods of providing public safety services to the community as well as making recommendations on reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst Police Department (APD). The group has spent their time studying the complex issue of delivering community safety services to ensure racial equity and examining existing town funding priorities for delivering those services.

Following the unrest last summer in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the cases of abuse involving police and the Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) community, the Town Council made an affirmation to Amherst’s BIPOC community that it would work toward making necessary changes within the community to build relations.     Since then, the CSWG was formed to take the steps forward in researching the areas that need to be addressed in the town and propose plans for the Town Council to enact. The group will disband next month as their term ends but recommended that they are succeeded by the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee (CSSJC) to take the research done and recommendations they have made and make sure they continue to garner the needed attention and work.

Before the town and BIPOC community can begin working together toward a positive relationship, the CSWG has strongly recommended that the town engage in a process of racial healing and visioning. It is believed that this is fundamental to the success of all other efforts the town is making toward racial justice and beginning the dismantling of white supremacy in Amherst and healing the harm caused to create a community of liberatory consciousness.

Through feedback shared from the BIPOC community, the CSWG has reported many accounts of experiences of disrespect and inequitable treatment by the APD and that the BIPOC community in general has an elevated level of fear and distrust of the APD. Through extensive research into how other municipalities are addressing issues of racism and inequity in safety services and working with three different consulting groups to assist them in their work, the CSWG had already released findings and initial recommendations through a May 2021 report (Part A).

“Community visions and input were taken for the report,” CSWG co-chair Ellisha Walker said to the Town Council. “[To the BIPOC community,] we hear you and we value you and we hope you will send them all the same message in moving these recommendations forward.”

The first thing recommended by the CSWG in Part A of their report was to implement the Community Responders for Equity, Safety, and Service (CRESS) program that will provide skilled, unarmed responders to calls for service that involve mental health, substance abuse, homelessness, trespass, wellness checks, youth, and/or the need for de-escalation, and will reduce unwanted contact between the APD and the BIPOC community. This program has been approved and is currently being developed with the expectation that it will become operational in the spring of 2022.

Also previously recommended was the Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) which is also in the process of being created with a new director for the department to be advertised soon. There were also the recommendations of creating a BIPOC-led Youth Center and BIPOC Cultural Center to give a space for the community to have for their own. While these are still only just recommendations, the CSWG is very much for these projects and have been stressing the importance of an area like that for the community and youth to still be considered.

CSWG member Pat Ononibaku stressed how something like this should be taken very seriously by the town when deciding where to budget money in the future.

“In my personal opinion, when it comes to BIPOC issues, we have to whatever the budget. Safety comes first and I do not feel safe in this town,” Ononibaku said. “I need a space where other people look like me and we can do stuff. If we don’t have money for our recommendations, we need to take a pause and see what we want in this town. If we have money for other things, what message are we sending to this town about the BIPOC community.”

One final recommendation from Part A was to reduce the size of the APD in response to the implementation of a program like CRESS. The CSWG believes that even with the reduction of two positions already made within the APD, more substantial reductions are necessary and will become easier as CRESS and other recommendations are implemented.

Part B, presented at the Oct. 25 special Town Council meeting, contained many new and more detailed recommendations for action by the Town Council, town manager, and the APD. These recommendations are designed to improve equity, transparency, accountability for the APD, and reduce unwanted contact between the APD and BIPOC community members to improve their safety.

One of the topics discussed most during the meeting was the recommendation to create a Resident Oversight Board (ROB) to provide oversight to the APD. The CSWG hopes that this specifically majority BIPOC board would be empowered to investigate complaints about the APD, recommend discipline of police officers, review and make recommendations about APD policy and practices, and invite community input about policing in Amherst. According to Walker she has spoken with a representative from the Springfield ROB and has learned they have subpoena power, something the Amherst version would also be looking for in properly operating their board.

While a group like a ROB is considered important and needed to hold police actions accountable, the report noted the APD has been cooperative with the CSWG and has polices in place that lean toward the progress attempting to be made. The anti-bias policy and collection of racial data regarding traffic stops in the town shows the APD has been very open in sharing information, providing data, and explaining their side of operations in effort to build the relationship within the community.

With that being said, the APD still has struggled to receive the confidence of BIPOC persons in Amherst. The CSWG has acknowledged that some of the feelings that BIPOC residents have about the police stem from incidents of police violence combined with the historically racist role of policing throughout the nation’s history but says that is not the full story of the situation in Amherst.

“The CSWG Working Group has heard too many stories of inappropriate police behavior in Amherst; we have experienced it ourselves; and we have seen it substantiated in our review of the APD traffic stop data,” the group wrote in the Part B Report.

A Resident Oversight Board for the town would only improve relations as it gives the community involvement in holding accountability in situations with police to the public, the report asserts. In the presentation, the CSWG included a quote from the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) that said, “Mutual trust and respect between police and communities are critical to effective law enforcement. Civilian oversight increases public trust in police by assuring the public that investigations have been done fairly, thoroughly, and objectively. This improved trust leads to greater public cooperation with law enforcement and in turn, improves public safety.” The formation of ROB is now on hold as questions came up regarding how this would impact the collective bargaining agreements of the APD. Its status will be updated at a later Town Council meeting

The CSWG also recommended following the lead of other municipalities who have already begun a proactive effort in addressing police and minority group relationships and finding new methods to improve them. The recommendation is based on the state of Virginia’s decision to prohibit police from making so-called “consent” searches of vehicles and from making any “low-level or pretextual” traffic stops. Based on the CSWG findings through data provided by the APD, Black people were nearly twice as likely to be pulled over by police than would be indicated by their proportion of the town population.

This change would significantly reduce traffic stops altogether and police would instead focus on only traffic violations that clearly endanger the public or situations involving serious crime as opposed to the practice of stopping someone for any minor infractions and then searching the driver or vehicle for other purposes. Changes like these provide the needed space between the police and communities who are fearful of the police and eliminate many of the scenarios that escalate for a variety of reasons, according to the CSWG.

Under a program like CRESS, officers would be removed from these low-stakes situations that are sometimes escalated. According to the 7Generations Movement Collective that worked with the CSWG, “The BIPOC population, in particular Black Americans, are 2.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by police (statistica.com) and for example in 2019, 24 percent of all police killings were of Black Americans, who make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population.”

One final recommendation that was proposed during the presentation was the rewriting or adoption of a new policy regarding use of force as well as the removal of certain policies that protect officers in situations of them abusing their power.

One example of something that is hoped to be removed from police policy is record sunsetting. As currently enforced, record sunsetting is a method where an officer's record of an incident of abuse is wiped away after a set period – one year in APD’s case – and never brought up again in future incidents with the officer. Meant as an incentive for officers in not holding past mistakes against them forever, the policy has often been abused and let off officers for poorly doing their job without any real rehabilitation going forward, according to the CSWG.

The council will meet again on Nov. 8 and have further discussions and determine the process of taking these recommendations and turning them into new policy. Those interested in the CSWG’s research can view the reports within the packet of the latest Town Council meeting on amherstma.gov.