AMHERST – A video making rounds on social media depicting an alleged early July incident between Amherst police officers and a group of minors has angered residents, many of whom condemned the actions by the officers at a Town Council meeting on July 18.

An undated video published on YouTube on July 11 shows two uniformed officers near a marked Amherst police cruiser speaking to multiple off-camera parties they identified as minors in response to an alleged noise complaint, telling them they were detained and did not have rights.

According to Amherst Police Department's dispatch records, officers Lindsay Carroll and Tyler Martins responded to 683 Main St. at 12:37 a.m. on  July 5 after the department received a complaint of loud voices in the location's parking lot. 

In her narrative in the dispatch records, Carroll reported she and Martins encountered a group of nine juveniles in the parking lot awaiting a tow truck because a vehicle had a flat tire. Carroll reported the operator of the vehicle initially declined to identify themselves. All nine juveniles on the scene were eventually identified and the officers determined to be 16 or 17 years old. 

According to the state's night restriction for junior operators, licensed drivers under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian between the hours of 12:30 and 5 a.m. and as a result, Carroll reported they made contact with parents and two adults picked up the nine teenagers. Martins' narrative in the dispatch record corroborates Carroll's account.

In the video depicting a short portion of the interaction between police and the minors, Martins is seen telling a party not visible on the screen, “Dude, I don’t need to know right now that you’ve got your rights because right now as a juvenile, you don’t have rights at this point. You’ve lost it, you’re not an adult.”

Carroll can be seen telling someone off screen, “You don’t get to make a call right now because we said so, because you’re detained because you can’t be out right now.”

After being asked to repeat that they don’t have rights, Carroll conceded that it was “poor phrasing.” When asked why they were being detained, Carroll said that there are bylaws for noise in Amherst and that the minors wouldn’t identify themselves.

Police dispatch records indicate officers were on scene for a total of 49 minutes and 16 seconds. The video in question is less than a minute in duration, and does not show the beginning of the interaction nor its conclusion. The video is available online at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZeOBWfVwZ0g.

Reminder Publishing reached out to the Amherst Police Department (APD) for comment but did not receive a response as of press time.

The APD’s noise bylaw enforcement policy states most noise complaints are solvable with a verbal warning but allows officers to use “stronger action” at their discretion. The policy points to situations in which the noise level is greatly beyond what is reasonable and/or the number of people present indicate that a warning would not be enough.

“There are many other indicators, too numerous to list that officers may rely on which indicate that the violators are less than cooperative and will continue the prohibitive behavior after a verbal warning is issued. In these cases, it is expected that officers will take further action to ensure compliance,” the policy says.

The video sparked a response from the Community Service Working Group (CSWG) and Town Manager Paul Bockelman. In the letter titled “Change Needed” from the CSWG, members stated that “the research and community voices we spent over a year collecting and sharing with the Town Council and town manager are still being silenced. Apartment complexes in Amherst are still being oversurveiled by the Amherst Police Department, youth who have no spaces such as a Youth Empowerment Center are being criminalized, youth and community members are being traumatized and mistreated, while an abuse of power and fear of retaliation continues.”

Bockelman’s statement points to the Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Security (CRESS) and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Departments as proof of the town’s “commitment to eradicate the effects of systemically racist practices in town government.” Bockelman said they are reviewing the video with a leadership team including the APD, CRESS and DEI departments.

“We are proud of the tangible steps the town has taken so far to ensure all members of our community feel safe,” Bockelman said. “We know there is much, much more work to do throughout the town and its departments. In our review of this situation, we are ready and committed to learn any lessons that will help us to better meet our goals going forward.”

For at least one resident and member of the CSWG, that statement wasn’t enough.

“To the Town Manager [Paul Bockelman] and the Police Chief [Scott Livingstone], how long is it going to take to review video of an incident that happened two weeks ago?” Pat Ononibaku asked at the July 18 Town Council meeting. “We are talking about human lives here, please show your leadership. I could go on but I will just stop, I am just exhausted. I’ve lived in this town for almost 40 years and nothing has changed at all, at all as a black woman.”

Paula Starnes, executive director of Youth Social Educational Training (YSET) Academy based out of Springfield, also attended the meeting, saying that her team’s previous work with the town has been “very concerning.”

“We were brought in last year, July 29, to move on getting a grant, the grant that Amherst currently has to help BIPOC youth and to work with the town,” Starnes said. “The reason why I’m chiming in is because I’m very concerned about the state of affairs with the youth and with YSET and the town. I’d like to just make mention that as a woman of color, doctor of education and close to 30 years of experience, my experience, my staff’s experience in working with the town to address the issues of BIPOC people in general has been very concerning and I would like the Town Council to really look closely on the matters that are going on between YSET and the town. We have done a lot of work in Amherst, and we were hoping that it would come to fruition.”

According to the dispatch record, police identified multiple teens in the group as black or of undetermined race. 

Kathleen Anderson said she was disappointed that there was an “accosting, a terrorization of young students by Amherst Police.”

She said the police should have been more responsible, and said she hopes that all similar calls in the future are referred to the CRESS department which is currently in its initial training stages.

According to archives on the town of Amherst's website, Martins graduated the Western Massachusetts Regional Police Academy in April 2019. He received a bachelor's degree in criminal justice with a minor in a minor in political science and history in 2017 and served as a special police officer in Ludlow prior to joining the Amherst Police Department.

Carroll has been a member of the Amherst Police Department since 2017 after graduating from the Reading Regional Police Academy, according to her LinkedIn profile and local media reports at the time. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in sociology and a criminal justice certificate. She completed her masters degree in public administration with a concentration in criminal justice at Westfield State University in December. Reminder Publishing highlighted Carroll in its recent report on the department's OUI Enforcement Achievement Award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving as one of five officers responsible for 76 percent of the Amherst Police Department's 117 OUI (operating under the influence) arrests.