Councilor Marianne Bullock has proposed a “City/Community Public Safety Task Force” with a long-term vision of creating a “community engagement process for defining a transformational vision for public safety that shifts resources from enforcement and punishment to prevention and wellness into subsequent budget cycles.” We like the sound of that–and the devil’s in the details.
Community task force vs. independent audit
The communitytask force proposal is in part a response to the Mayor’s proposed audit of GPD following the racial discrimination lawsuit against the city and Chief Haigh and the ensuing public outcry. The task force will be run by volunteers. The audit will be performed by hired professional consultants.
The audit can address policies and stated procedures of the Greenfield Police Department, but as Councilor Bullock’s proposal already states, any community task force should not focus on GPD. We already know that most of the calls directed to the police could be better handled in other ways. We know that the kind of safety many community members urgently need cannot be delivered by law enforcement. We know, per the American Public Health Association (here and here), that the best ways to reduce the racialized harms of the criminal legal system are to reduce people’s contact with police and invest in community support and prevention. That’s why we are calling for the task force to focus on addressing our community’s safety more broadly.
Councilor Bullock’s proposal is framed that way. But who’s going to steer this task force? The mayor? The police? The mayor holds final say over how this task force is structured. That makes us very concerned.
Our demands
The task force must prioritize addressing the material needs of our neighbors, especially those most harmed by policing and by shortfalls in essential services.
In order for our group to support the City-Community Task Force, the following changes must be made:
No police or public safety commission members on the task force (See all of our reasons here). Include police and other officials and professionals in the process through a non-voting advisory board to avoid conflicts of interest and reduce the currently excessive number of proposed seats on the task force.
The mayor must agree to appoint the members that the city council recommends.
Fund administrative assistance for the task force.
Provide meaningful stipends; participants can opt out of a stipend if they choose but should be encouraged to take stipend if it’s helpful for their participation, with no explanation needed.
The task force must be able to make recommendations on a rolling basis before 18 months, as they see fit.
The scope of the task force’s work must include community needs assessments, as well as feasibility studies for the implementation of best-practice programs like housing first and non-police crisis response. Feasibility studies are necessary if the task force’s recommendations are to have a clear pathway to implementation.
Call or Email the Mayor and Council ASAP
The Mayor’s final proposal for a task force must include these provisions in order to take meaningful steps toward re-envisioning public safety in Greenfield. Please reach out to the mayor and city council to make these demands. Please email them ASAP, because the task force proposal is getting written right now. Then please join us to make these demands at the August council meeting, August 17.
Police have run local government for far too long. Let’s change that.
We demand that any community task force on public safety be composed entirely of civilians, with no members of the police or public safety commission. Why?
Confidentiality. If the task force seeks to gather community testimony that may feature negative experiences with the police and harm caused by the police, including police officers in the task force is a gross breach of confidentiality and ethics and endangers community members. People who have had negative experiences with the police have every reason to be afraid of retaliation–it happens all the time, and the same people who have historically been targets of police abuse are also most vulnerable to retaliation. Excluding cops is not enough to guarantee confidentiality or safety, but it is a necessary first step. Note also that in other communities task force members themselves have been targets of documented police retaliation.
Independence. The initial move to audit the police department came from a need for an independent investigation into misconduct and discrimination which cannot successfully be carried out by anyone in the department.
Trust. Community members will need to have trust in the task force before even considering sharing negative experiences.
Oversight. The task force is being created out of a recognized need for better civilian oversight of the police. It makes no sense, and it is a complete conflict of interest, for police to literally oversee their own department.
Unnecessary. The police will be deeply involved in shaping the task force’s recommendations, regardless of whether they are represented directly among voting members of the task force.
Experience. Task forces in other towns and cities have routinely excluded police for all the reasons listed above and still created meaningful ways for police to participate in the process. Additionally, over-policed communities, especially people of color organizing to change policing and prisons, have very clearly demanded that police be excluded from such task forces.
Cost vs. benefits. There are simple ways to make sure that police can meaningfully participate and be represented in the task force proceedings without including them as members in the task force (see alternative proposal below). However, the potential costs of including police in the task force are grave, as noted above. Why risk harm and undermine trust when there are better, safer options of ways to include police ready at hand?
Alternative proposals:
Create an official advisory board to the task force. This will help the task force have ready access to specialist knowledge, experience, and data, while reducing the total number of members (which offers other practical benefits to the process, too). The advisory board should be non-voting and should include all of those officials and professionals listed in Councilor Bullock’s proposal. There are good reasons for this beyond our desire to limit the undue influence of the police: it’s inappropriate to place employees of social service agencies in voting roles as part of their professional duties because it is a conflict of interest–these agencies could potentially acquire contracts to provide services that the task force recommends, and all agencies have pre-existing relationships with the police which they have to maintain.
Instruct the police department and fire department to each appoint a liaison to the advisory board (to be confirmed by majority of the task force or by city council), for the purpose of providing information, facilitating communication, and representing the position of the departments and experiences of their members. This should be a non-voting position, and the task force should be able to conduct its business independently of the police.
Instruct the task force to interview officers and include their points of view and professional opinions in their report.
Ensure there will be rigorous public outreach included in the task force’s duties: this will include interviews with stakeholders from every relevant city department including the police.
It’s that time again–Greenfield city council meets this Wednesday, July 20, at 6:30pm, in person at Jon Zon and online over Zoom. Agenda here, zoom link here.
On the docket is the mayor’s request for $175k for an audit of the Greenfield Police Department.UPDATE 7/19: Ways & Means voted to table the mayor’s audit proposal until August. (Albany spent $78k on their audit, so $175k is probably more than the council will approve.) Councilor Bullock proposes to modify the mayor’s proposal, instead creating a volunteer, civilian task force to conduct a review of public safety in Greenfield, with a professional consultant working under the supervision of the community task force rather than the mayor. This item will be the subject of public hearing.
Because the audit has been tabled until August, we can use public comment this Wednesday to voice our concerns and hopefully influence whatever final proposal Councilor Bullock brings forward.
Public Safety Task Forces
There have been many public safety task forces, especially since the uprisings following the murder of George Floyd. We highly recommend reading the report from Interrupting Criminalization on Navigating Public Safety Task Forces. Long story short: it’s very hard to get real transformative solutions out of this kind of process, and they can have unexpected outcomes and risks of police retaliation against community members who take part. This is especially true when police and their political allies are able to commandeer or obstruct the process.
Abolitionist organizers who have navigated these task forces in the past recommend skipping straight to transformative solutions that you already know you want–such as community-based, non-police programs that build real safety–rather than getting bogged down in a long, messy process. From our discussions, though, we’re not sure folks in Greenfield are ready to support those types of changes without a sustained public conversation, and maybe a task force can provide a venue for that. Maybe we can steer this process to convince more of the public by highlighting the failures of policing and focusing on proven solutions, such as harm reduction. How do we do that? Well…
Please consider volunteering for the task force.
There’s a good chance a task force like Councilor Bullock’s proposal will be approved. If a task force is going to succeed, it’s going to need good people steering it. In Councilor Bullock’s proposal, there will be positions for one person from each precinct plus positions reserved for people with lived experience with the criminal legal system, plus a range of people in specific professions. Please reach out if you’d like us to keep you in the loop about volunteering, and reach out to friends and neighbors who you think are good candidates.
OUR DEMANDS FOR A TASK FORCE
If we’re going to have a public safety task force, here are a few things that would make it more likely to succeed:
The task force has to consider not just what the police do, but what they shouldn’t do, and who else could do a better job meeting community needs. The task force has to be about more than just police procedures and policies–it has to be about acknowledging our needs and building our community capacity to meet those needs. (That’s why the mayor’s audit is not enough to address the community’s concerns.)
No copsand no public safety commission members on the task force. If the task force does any community listening sessions, we must make every effort to protect people from retaliation. That is not possible if the police are involved.
Task force members should beappointed by City Council, not the Mayor.
Appointed members should have a demonstrated interest in studyingevidence and making evidence-based recommendations. Unfortunately, most policies around public safety ignore all evidence and are justified only with fear-mongering and propaganda.
Offer stipends to task force members. If we want a more diverse task force, we have to address barriers to participation–and that means offering to defray expenses like childcare during meetings.
The task force should have subpoena power to get the information they need, and they should investigate and document all institutional obstacles to getting effective civilian control over our police force and accountability for wrong-doing.
Along with any task force, Greenfield should commission feasibility studies for “best practice” programs that we already know we would benefit from, such as civilian mobile crisis response (a la CAHOOTS) and housing first (low-barrier permanent housing for people in need of shelter, with optional supportive services). It takes time to build new programs, so let’s not kick these cans down the road any longer.
The Mayor must commit to following the recommendations of the task force.
If you agree, please reach out to your councilors and the mayor to make these demands, and join us at Wednesday’s meeting to push for a process we can maybe, hopefully, be proud of, after a lot of hard work and muddling through.
We firmly believe that Chief Haigh should be removed as police chief of Greenfield. We have heard many people defend Haigh, including in public comments at the City Council meeting. Unfortunately, Haigh’s defenders have mischaracterized our reasons for saying he has to go.
Let’s lay out the reasons, team.
First and foremost, LACK OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE.Haigh will never again have public confidence as Chief of Police. The Chief is above all else a manager who has to respond to community expectations, manage personnel and programs, and uphold professional standards. As we outline below, Haigh has failed on these counts.
DISCRIMINATION. The jury found a preponderance of evidence suggesting he and the City discriminated against Buchanan. This is the second time the City lost this case–the first time was in arbitration. It’s very hard to win a discrimination case, and Buchanan did it twice. Haigh’s discrimination practices have cost the city’s insurance $1 million, a cost that will be passed on to residents through premiums. Evidence from the trial also suggested that Haigh has accepted at face value the general sentiment at GPD that Laura Gordon is “a complainer” and “not well liked” after her lawsuit and settlement for harassment and discrimination, and Haigh appeared to accept this as a reason not to promote her.
LACK OF DISCIPLINARY ACTION. The Buchanan case demonstrated that Haigh neglected to impose disciplinary action against officers for a range of serious offenses. McCarthy seized the cellphone of his daughter’s ex, and he also held onto seized drugs and cash for 8 weeks with only a ‘verbal warning.’ Clark was inebriated on duty multiple times with no disciplinary action, despite having operated a cruiser and having a gun. Rode was known to be a bad driver, but when he killed someone with his cruiser he remained on payroll with no disciplinary action for months and months and was fired only when he was finally convicted of homicide. (We have also heard allegations about Buchanan’s own misconduct as an officer but none of this appears in the record. Where is the disciplinary action or at least evidence of reprimand?)
DISREGARD FOR COMMUNITY CONCERNS AMIDST CONTROVERSY. Haigh covered for McCarthy and his Confederate flag during the 2015 controversy. He disregarded the public’s concerns and demands. He resisted the Human Rights Commission’s efforts to deal with the controversy. He never initiated an investigation or disciplinary action against McCarthy, not even with all the hateful harassment directed at the parent who originally brought the flag to the public’s attention. Later, having learned nothing from this experience and showing total contempt for the issue of human rights, Haigh later assigned McCarthy to investigate the harassment of Penny Ricketts and Rudy Renaud. Even when the City Council passed legislation requiring GPD to appoint a Civil Rights Officer to lead such investigations, Haigh neglected to appoint anyone to the position, a breach of municipal law.
RETALIATION AGAINST COMPLAINTS. A nurse was arrested out of her shower, after GPD officers entered her home with no warrant and only on suspicion of OUI. She was never charged. In her official complaint, the nurse listed damning details of the behavior of GPD officers, including calling DCF on her out of retaliation. When she later angrily complained to the officer who arrested her, Haigh informed her employer and got her fired. The Public Safety Commission, helmed by Haigh’s former father-in-law, declined to form an opinion as to whether Haigh’s retaliation was appropriate or not.
LACK OF CONCERN FOR RACIAL DISPARITIES IN GPD ENFORCEMENT. GPD’s own data shows that Black drivers are disproportionately subject to traffic citations, and Black people are arrested at a significantly higher rate than white people. Black people make up approximately 2% of the population of Greenfield but receive about 7% of traffic citations and 9% of arrests. Under Chief Haigh, the department’s annual reports on “bias based policing” have shown no curiosity about why this biased policing happens.
DISRESPECT FOR CITY COUNCIL AND BUDGETARY PROCESS. It is the responsibility of councilors to evaluate the propriety of budget requests made by the mayor and department heads. For FY22 Haigh requested $5 million for police station upgrades with about as much detail as you could scribble on a napkin. His later comments about what the project entailed were inconsistent. When pushed for clarity, Haigh became defensive, bullying, and acted entitled to the funds. Similarly for FY23 Haigh requested nearly $1m for a new sally port (covered garage/entrance to the police station) as part of a larger capital request. When pressed whether he had considered cheaper ways to replace the sally port, Haigh showed no regard for thrift or willingness to consider alternatives. In fact, Haigh was at a bar when he was scheduled to appear at the council’s budget hearing. When he arrived almost an hour late, he took a disrespectful tone with councilors.
We understand that the process for terminating or demoting Chief Haigh is prescribed by his contract and must show “just cause” according to MA Civil Service laws (MGL Ch. 31). We strongly believe all of the reasons shown above, which are all part of the public record, are clear evidence that Haigh is not fit to serve as chief of police in Greenfield.
Read the court documents: Buchanan vs. Haigh and City of Greenfield
Description of the case: detailed back story about unequal discipline of white officers (including McCarthy) vs. Buchanan
Expert assessment of GPD disciplinary/internal affairs process, detailing deficiencies in Haigh’s discipline of officers. Includes major infractions by Dan McCarthy (seizing the cell phone of a young man who had been involved with McCarthy’s adult daughter; seizing cash and drugs and not turning them in) that warranted no significant disciplinary response or investigation; as well as Chief Haigh’s targeting of a Baystate nurse for termination by her employer, after she complained that officers entered her home without a warrant, removed her from the shower, forced her to get dressed while they watched, and later dropped all charges.
Mayor announces independent audit of “practices and standards” at GPD (Recorder). The mayor proposed to the city council to model the RFP on audits contracted by Methuen, MA, and Albany, NY. She estimates the cost to be $175,000. (Note that Albany, a much bigger city, spent $78k on their audit. Where’s the extra $100k going?) The mayor will issue an RFP and accept bids to audit “organizational structure and governance, operating policies and procedures, department culture, hiring and promotional practices, professional standards and accountability, budgeting and planning.”
We have concerns about an independent audit.
While we agree that we all need more information to decide how the city should move forward, investigations of this kind too often avoid accountability by moving the conversation behind closed doors. If this investigation is to provide any sense of accountability, it must also incorporate a genuine effort at public engagement. We have some initial thoughts about what that could look like:
The public should determine the scope of the audit and the questions to be answered. An audit that is too narrowly-focused will not address the community’s concerns and thus will not provide accountability. An audit that is focused on the wrong questions will also not answer the community’s concerns.
The audit should be subject to oversight by a committee of the public. Members of the committee could sign limited confidentiality agreements if necessary, but the scope of confidentiality should be sharply limited–especially since Massachusetts law states that officer misconduct is not exempt from public records law.Committee members should have the opportunity to interpret findings for themselves, to ensure a diversity of follow-up recommendations. Members of the Public Safety Commission should not be eligible, given their abysmal record overseeing GPD (see below).
The report should not center officers’ self-reported beliefs and actions and instead focus on outcomes for the community. Research on policing shows a sharp divergence between officers’ perceptions and community perceptions of police interactions. We have heard loud and clear that the Mayor does not consider herself a racist, but we the public are not concerned about whether the Mayor, or the Chief, or anyone else, announces in public that they are racist or anti-racist. Yes, we are concerned about whether there is evidence that officers harbor racial animosities, and we believe that such officers should not be police. But we must also focus on outcomes, because policing is part of a system that is known to have disparate, often violent outcomes for some people much more than others. The issue is too complicated to fall back on simplistic ideas about racism–even Black officers and police officials and mayors have contributed to perpetuating racial violence in policing (see for example, the police killing of Freddy Gray in Baltimore, by officers some of whom were Black, under the leadership of a Black police commissioner and a Black woman mayor).
Raw data used in developing the report should be made publicly available. In addition, we at the Greenfield People’s Budget believe certain basic public records should be made available through this report: all MCAD complaints against GPD; all lawsuits filed against Greenfield related to the police; all citizen complaints to GPD; all internal affairs investigations; referrals to DCF; and so on.
Any report’s findings and recommendations should be considered incomplete unless we are able to garner direct testimony of people who have suffered harm at the hands of the police and the criminal legal system. It will not be easy to gather testimony from people who are the target of police enforcement. We also recognize that it is dangerous for people who are policed to testify publicly on the harms they’ve experienced. We do not presently have a clear vision for how to accomplish the goal of gathering these neighbors’ input and experience, because any such effort must be rooted in the long-term goals of inviting consent, building safety, and building people’s power over their government–not the short-term, instrumental goals of one investigation. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that we must have this conversation as a community and move firmly towards being responsive to those of us who are most harmed.
On the Public Safety Commission
In addition, it has become eminently clear that the Public Safety Commission is incapable of overseeing the police department. The PSC is the oversight body of the police in Greenfield, overseeing complaints as well as hiring/firing/promoting. The Buchanan case makes it clear that the PSC has enabled repeated wrongdoings at GPD and continues to expose residents to risks of retaliation by relying on police to investigate complaints. Civilian oversight boards historically have little success in reining in police misconduct. The current chair of the PSC also has significant conflict of interest, since he is Chief Haigh’s former father-in-law.
In other news…
Let’s summarize other developments in the situation in Greenfield for those who may have missed some of the recent news. First, a comparison of budget numbers for the record:
FY22 Greenfield PD salaries and wages were $3,326,601.
FY23 Mayor’s request for GPD salaries and wages were $3,539,163 (6.4% increase over FY22)
FY23 GPD salaries and wages after city council’s cut: $3,139,163 (5.6% decrease over FY22)
Also note that the council’s $400,000 cut to GPD salaries is a little more than the combined salaries of Chief Haigh and Lt. McCarthy, who city council (and much of the public) wanted the mayor to let go. Councilors who wanted the cut named two primary reasons for the cut:
First, that the Mayor showed no sign that she would hold the police department accountable in any real way for Buchanan’s discrimination lawsuit or any of the police misconduct that the court case documented. In her first public statement after the verdict, Mayor Wedegartner said she expected Chief Haigh to be “completely exonerated.” The Mayor has furthermore lost the confidence of the council and public after repeated deception and condescension on a variety of issues, including the Lunt facility contamination and the planned outdoor cannabis farm on Country Club Rd. The public, and councilors as well, had no faith that the Mayor would take responsible action after the Buchanan case.
Second, that the cost of GPD per capita is much higher than similar towns and cities in our region. Most towns also have roughly equal spending on fire and police, and Greenfield spends about 30% more on police than on our fire department.
Now here’s what’s happened since the May city council meeting:
Actual cost of the discrimination verdict rises. Buchanan’s award from the jury was roughly $450k but that amount earns interest from 2017, when the case was filed. That puts the bill for his award alone at over $700k, but that amount will continue to grow until the bill is paid. Buchanan’s legal fees came to $418k, putting the city’s bill at well over $1 million. Many commenters have said that this amount does not come directly out of the city’s budget but is paid by of the city’s liability insurer. Are we to believe that large lawsuits will not affect the amount we pay for our city’s insurance?
GPD Facebook posts. Following the city council’s cut to the police budget, the Greenfield Police Department issued a memo on Facebook and through the Recorder regarding cuts to services. There was no mention of the lawsuit or any of the concerns voiced by councilors in cutting the budget–specifically, that the budget cut was roughly equal to the salaries of Chief Haigh and Lt. McCarthy, who they (and much of the public) want to be let go. Quoting their FB page:
Staffing will be reduced from four single-officer cruisers to two double-officer cruisers.
Cruiser mileage will be limited to trips that are absolutely necessary to our core mission as a police department.
Idling of cruisers should be limited to reduce fuel consumption.
We have an estimated deficit in our fuel line item of $25,000 for FY22 as a result of recent spikes in fuel costs. We expect these fuel costs to continue to rise for FY23.[Note that GPD complains of a $25,000 deficit in fuel funding but fails to mention that they are asking councilors to fund that deficit; so as of the upcoming council meeting, this so-called deficit may not even exist any more]
We will continue to give the highest priority to life-threatening calls. The Department recognizes that these changes will affect response times for certain calls, our proactive approach to crime and traffic enforcement, and our visibility in the community.
These significant changes are designed to ensure the safety of our officers by sending no fewer than two officers to a call, while addressing the financial and political realities that confront the Department.
Public Safety Commission avoids discussing the lawsuit or other misconduct.
At the commission’s May meeting, there was no serious discussion of the lawsuit or public demands for accountability on the part of officers. Rather, the discussion centered on all of the cuts they would be forced to make–specifically, 8 junior officers’ positions, rather than the two senior officers implicated in the lawsuit and other misconduct revelations. Note that this was one of the only PSC meetings to ever be recorded, thanks to a volunteer effort. The PSC, charged with providing oversight to the department, meets at the Greenfield police station. The chair of the commission is Chief Haigh’s former father-in-law, “Butch” Hawkins.
At the commission’s June 8 meeting, Acting Chief Gordon gave a lengthy presentation ostensibly about pending staffing cuts, although much of the presentation was given over to mischaracterizing quotes of city councilors during budget deliberations. The People’s Budget website also made a cameo appearance in his presentation, although unfortunately Gordon did not engage very deeply (or honestly) with our arguments. Much of the presentation and later discussion was concerned with how to provide safety with reduced staffing, with significant resentment directed at city council and at Greenfield People’s Budget. There was no discussion of the lawsuit or of the fact that the council imposed these budget cuts not to cut 8 junior officers but to cut the three senior officers guilty of wrongdoing. Two of our members were present and pointed this out in public comment. Molly Merrett argued against the claim that council’s cuts were making the city unsafe by suggesting that “racially discriminating against community members and members of the police department is not keeping us safe; showing up drunk to work repeatedly is not keeping us safe; displaying a Confederate flag is not keeping us safe.” Against the claim that officers are feeling demoralized and that they’ve lost community trust, Jon Magee said that it’s officers’ wrongdoings that have caused the community to lose trust in the police, and that the wrongdoings are the problem–not the community members who show up to complain about misconduct.
GPD cutting K9 program? GPD posted on Facebook (with a follow-up Recorder article) bemoaning that they will have to cut the new (May 2021) K9 program (“Officer Niko”). In follow-up discussion it seems clear that they will be able to pay for the $7k for the handler stipend using donations and retain the program, but the post garnered almost 1000 comments and about 350 reactions–compare to the post announcing the independent audit of GPD, which got 37 comments and 22 reactions. The Recorder article notes that the dog was donated by Tim Van Epps, CEO of Sandri Energy, and a grant from the Stanton Foundation paid for additional expenses. Again, no mention of the discrimination lawsuit other than Niko’s handler, Patrick Merrigan, dismissing the idea that they can fire 2 senior officers instead of the 8 juniors.
GPD promotes co-responder program. After the Greenfield People’s Budget filed a public records request for information about the police-embedded social worker program, the Recorder ran an article entitled “Police applaud clinician partnerships,” quoting only police and an executive at CSO, the agency that has the contract for working with GPD. Greenfield People’s Budget released our Co-Responder FAQ to help fill in gaps in that story: namely that many social workers and even law enforcement professionals are opposed to co-response models, yet many police and politicians promote these programs to advance their own interests. CIT International, the organization who wrote the trainings which most Massachusetts police receive in mental health de-escalation, have this to say about co-response:
“The presence of law enforcement at a mental health crisis event implicitly defines the situation as a potentially dangerous and criminal matter. This can become real in its consequences, as the mere presence of police can escalate the person in crisis, particularly if they have a history of trauma.
“It is important to note that most people experiencing a mental health crisis are not violent nor are they engaged in criminal behavior. They report that having police involved is stigmatizing and increases trauma at a time when they feel extremely frightened and vulnerable. Furthermore, the negative impact of police involvement is disproportionately experienced in communities of color, who are demanding alternatives to law enforcement response. Simply putting a clinician in a police car does not address these concerns.”
Mayor releases Lt. Dodge from paid leave. The Mayor had placed Lt. Dodge on paid leave immediately after the verdict was announced, claiming that the city was investigating Dodge for lying during the case. Dodge was the only Greenfield officer to testify in support of Patrick Buchanan. The judge denied the City’s effort to access Dodge’s sealed testimony–Dodge’s attorneys had sought to prevent the City from accessing this testimony because the City appeared to be retaliating against Dodge for testifying on Buchanan’s behalf. Note: As the Mayor herself noted upon releasing Dodge from leave, they continue to investigate Dodge. A new motion filed by Greenfield on June 1 seeks yet again to access the sealed testimony of Dodge and Haigh, claiming that one of the two of them lied during that discussion, since they contradicted each other, and claiming that the Mass. police reform law requires the City to determine if one of them lied and report them to the state POST commission. The City’s motion makes a false equivalence between Dodge’s leave (which included the instructions not to leave his home during work hours, which is highly irregular and thus smacks of retaliation) and Haigh’s leave (which included no such instruction, to our knowledge).
City attempting to get a mistrial declared. The Mayor most recently said the city’s lawyer and insurer are still discussing whether to appeal the Buchanan verdict, and the Mayor claims that the case is entirely out of her hands. Note that the City’s legal team is currently seeking a mistrial on the basis that McCarthy’s Confederate flag, and Haigh’s (non-)response to it, should not have been allowed as evidence in the trial. From our perspective, it doesn’t matter whether a judge thinks this evidence is relevant to the question of racism at GPD. We know it’s a problem that our police chief was unconcerned that a senior officer displays his nostalgia for the era of state-sanctioned white supremacy and violent enslavement of African people.
Definition: “Co-responders” are social workers who accompany police responding to emergency calls, also called “police-embedded clinicians.” These programs have existed for decades, but law enforcement agencies are increasingly promoting co-response in the face of widespread criticism of police. The Greenfield People’s Budget, like many community organizers and mental health professionals across the nation, are opposed to the co-response model.
The Wildflower Alliance recently shared these “Top 10 Reasons to Just Say No to Co-Responder models.”
Q: A co-responder seems like a good, incremental step towards a better system for dealing with emergencies. Why are you opposed to incremental change?
A: At the surface level, Co-responders can seem like an improvement, but they are not an incremental change towards some other system that offers better mental health care. By keeping police involved in mental health calls, these models in fact represent a significant expansion of policing. Co-responder models serve to legitimize police being involved in more and more non-violent life situations. Police also retain ultimate authority over how the team responds to a call, despite their frequent claims of following the lead of the co-responder. Recall that co-responders are generally one clinician surrounded by police and police culture, responding to calls at the discretion of the police. A single clinician cannot take on the entrenched, punishment-focused culture of police officers and their unions, and no clinician that tried would get the job or be able to keep it.
Furthermore, experience has shown that co-responder programs are not an incremental change: Proponents of co-responder programs do not outline any concrete path from co-response to non-police response. For them, police-based response is the goal, not a step towards something else. In practice, co-responder programs have become a key tool for preventing non-police programs from becoming established.Because police generally retain control over emergency dispatch even when non-police programs are created, police have steered calls away from non-police programs and towards co-responder programs, in order to undermine non-police programs they see as politically threatening. Public officials have also offered generous on-going funding for co-responder programs while consistently underfunding non-police programs, setting them up to fail.
Q: Aren’t police important for keeping civilian responders safe?
A: Police assume by default that most situations are dangerous. Police training emphasizes the idea that they can be ambushed or attacked at any time. Much of the reason they assume people in personal crisis are dangerous is that police regularly witness these situations escalate into violent struggles, but police themselves are a primary source of escalation and violence. Cops’ reputation precedes them, and officers shouting, acting aggressively, and threatening an agitated person with their weapons is a proven strategy to make a difficult situation spiral out of control.
“The presence of law enforcement at a mental health crisis event implicitly defines the situation as a potentially dangerous and criminal matter. This can become real in its consequences, as the mere presence of police can escalate the person in crisis, particularly if they have a history of trauma.
“It is important to note that most people experiencing a mental health crisis are not violent nor are they engaged in criminal behavior. They report that having police involved is stigmatizing and increases trauma at a time when they feel extremely frightened and vulnerable. Furthermore, the negative impact of police involvement is disproportionately experienced in communities of color, who are demanding alternatives to law enforcement response. Simply putting a clinician in a police car does not address these concerns.”
Non-police crisis response units are able to respond to crisis calls with much less risk of escalation. The well-known CAHOOTS program, in Eugene, Oregon, has responded to hundreds of thousands of calls over more than 30 years with very few injuries to responders or the people they’re helping. They only very rarely call the police, either. As their director said, “It’s our experience that folks in crisis just aren’t dangerous.”
Q: Should we just send a social worker team to mental health calls?
A: The best response to a mental health emergency is peer support workersand medics, not licensed clinicians. Peer counselors combine lived experience and expert training to help people in crisis get the care they need in a manner they can trust, rejecting coercive and punitive approaches (such as involuntary hospitalization) in favor of therapeutic peer support practices. However, peer support workers cannot effectively offer consensual, person-centered care in bureaucratic agencies (like CSO or ServiceNet) that collaborate closely with law enforcement, rely heavily on coercive interventions, treat their own employees terribly, and consistently prioritize profit and legal liability over patients’ well-being. Coercive care is policing by another name with similar devastating results for many clients. Unfortunately, these large institutional care providers are dominant in the existing mental/behavioral health care system.
We cannot provide appropriate care to people in crisis if we limit ourselves to a false choice between police-based interventions or profit-based interventions.
Q:Isn’t it good that the police are involving a “community organization” in their work?
It is not helpful to call a bureaucratic, profit-oriented health agency a “community organization.” Just because they have 501(c)3 tax status does not mean they are directed by community values rather than acquiring lucrative state contracts.
Employees at CSO (and ServiceNet, and others) have been outspoken about demeaning working conditions and pay, lack of support for staff, and the poor quality of care they are able to provide as a result. Clients of these agencies also regularly complain about their treatment by the agencies, not least because the providers regularly call on police and lean heavily on coercive interventions such as involuntary hospitalization and forced psychiatric medication.
Non-profit executives, police, and politicians all play the same language games, slapping trendy labels like “trauma-informed” and “peer-based” on the same old institutional, coercive, profit-driven models of care. Referring to social service agencies as “community organizations” is a deception designed to distract from the fact that these agencies’ only real customer is the state. The product they offer: providing “care” in the cheapest possible way with no regard for the human costs.
Q: What about domestic violence? These calls are dangerous for responders and police are helpful in these situations.
A: If survivors choose to call the police as their strategy to be safe, we honor that choice. We must also acknowledge that most victims of abuse never call the police. Why not?
Because police don’t stop abuse. Most often victims’ primary goal is not to have their abusive partner arrested–it’s to have them stop abusingthem. When police do arrest an abuser, they are usually sent right back home and forced to attend and pay for coercive therapy programs. If abusers are jailed, the cycle of harm is perpetuated setting the stage for more trauma and more abuse later.
Because police harm survivors. Survivors of abuse are often accused of crime by police, and they are often abused or assaulted by police. Calling the police also means that DCF is going to get involved in your family, with a likely result that you will lose custody of your children and suffer additional punitive sanctions or prison. This system of family policing regularly punishes mothers for “failing to protect” their children from their abusive partners.
Co-response programs do not address these harms. In order to help the majority of victims who are not calling for help right now, we need a completely different framework–one that offers justice for victims and stops the cycles of harm that lead to abuse in the first place. Policing and incarceration play a central role in that cycle of harm and abuse. We do not claim that non-police crisis response programs like CAHOOTS are a clear fix for domestic violence emergencies, either. The message from survivor advocates is clear: there is no easy fix, no one-size-fits-all solution for helping survivors, but we have to aim to reduce harm. For this reason we cannot let policing and prison solutions be the focus of our responses to abuse.
The Mayor and Greenfield Police Department issued fear-mongering public statements as they continue to avoid dealing with the egregious misconduct brought to light in the Buchanan & Dodge vs. City of Greenfield lawsuit. This is a great time to share what we know about the Greenfield Police Department–how they spend their time, how they spend our money, and what kind of shenanigans they would rather forget we know about.
How GPD spends their time
Last year we analyzed GPD’s press logs to get a better idea of how they spend their time and what our community’s needs are. Here’s what we found:
As Acting Chief Gordon mentioned in the Recorder, GPD handles around 32,000 calls per year. However, over 90% of these calls have nothing to do with crime–not even allegations of crime. Less than 1% of police calls involve reports of assault or violence, and only about 6% of calls involve supposed property crimes—including many mundane items like “caller’s wife took his debit card,” “two large pumpkins stolen off porch,” and “BLM sign stolen.” Two thirds of police calls fall into categories including assistance for residents (28.8%; for example, “person flagged down officer to ask relationship advice”), traffic matters (20.4%), hazards (5.3%; “tree down”), and alarms randomly going off (7.6%). Complaints (17%) and disputes (9%) include many calls like people dancing in Energy Park after hours, “intoxicated person advised to go to bed,” and 102 calls (over one year) from the same address about a mental health issue.
Many, many calls are asking for help with relationship issues and addiction and substance use issues. These calls are not appropriate for the police. The city can and should do better with helping people know who they can call for appropriate help.
Many of the highest paid city employees are police, and many of them make well over $100k base salary, even without bonuses and stipends. Police are way too expensive to assign them to non-emergencies.
Greenfield has very little crime. Nationwide, crime of all kinds, but especially violent crime, is down from its peak in the 1990s. But crime in Greenfield has declined more than the national average. Arrests are down 80% from a peak in the year 2000. The peak was 1,426 arrests in 2000, while GPD only made 265 arrests in 2020. Of those arrests, the large majority are minor offenses:
Here’s how these arrests break down in 2020:
185 arrests, or 70% were for low-level offenses.
10 arrests were for property crimes.
24 arrests were for drug violations (“crimes against society”).
Only 46 arrests were for crimes against person, 3/4 of which were for simple assault.
11 out of 265 arrests were for “violent crime” (aggravated assault and sexual assault). That’s 4% of arrests.
A full 70% of arrests are for low-level offenses. These are exactly the kind of offenses that are used by police to justify street-level harassment of houseless people and people of color.
According to the fear-mongering press release and Facebook post by GPD, the police will have to focus on their “core mission,” presumably meaning responding to violence. Maybe if they actually do that, houseless people won’t be harassed by the cops as much.
And maybe, just maybe, traffic stops for “Driving While Black” will finally go down.
What we learned today: The Mayor may be illegally retaliating against Lt. Dodge, the only GPD officer to testify in support of Buchanan’s claims. He was placed under “house arrest” (during work hours) as soon as the verdict was filed, and GPD is “investigating” him for supposedly lying on the stand. Court documents filed today show that the City has provided no information about what supposed lies Dodge told. It seems clear he’s being illegally retaliated against for breaking the “blue wall of silence.” See court documents released today.
How many more lawsuits is the Mayor trying to bring on the City of Greenfield?
Tonight the City Council resumes yesterday’s meeting at 6:30pm, at Jon Zon and over Zoom, with the police budget first up on the agenda. Councilors have asked that people please come and show support during this difficult debate.
Thank you to everyone who came out Monday! Let’s keep the pressure on–We will not let this rest until we we’ve gotten justice. Please come out to the City Council Meeting at Jon Zon Community Center, 35 Pleasant St., at 6:30pm, and give comment if you can. Zoom attendees will not be able to give comment.
Some helpful updates before tonight:
The court awarded Patrick Buchanan $450k, but the city owes interest from the date the case was filed in 2017. Total over $700k + legal fees. The longer the case goes on, the more we owe him.
The city’s lawyers are trying to get a mistrial declared. They might get it, but that ruling would be appealed and the case will again go to court. Greenfield will lose again & owe a few more years of interest.
The mayor signed a 3-year contract with Chief Haigh in January, even though the jury trial was underway.
City Council has no authority to fire city employees. The Mayor manages city departments, so we have to pressure her to make the changes we want.
City Council can cut budget allocations, and they should cut GPD by $1 million tonight. That will bring Greenfield police spending in line with similar towns—excluding, of course, the hundreds of thousands our insurance will pay to Buchanan and any severance deals the Mayor might cut. But firing McCarthy and Haigh will cut two of the biggest salary packages from GPD’s budget—together over $300k.
Suggested talking points and demands tonight
Take responsibility for harms committed by our officers. Get rid of Chief Haigh and Lt. McCarthy—Council can’t do this, but let them know we want them gone.
Cut the GPD budget by $1 million. Bring our police spending in line with similar towns, and use the only lever available to the council to force change on an anti-democratic mayor and corrupt police department.
Don’t spend our money on superficial changes that don’t work: Training. Co-responder/ride-along clinicians. Community policing.
Spend our money on addressing community needs appropriately: Housing. Public health & harm reduction. Mental and behavioral health supports. Prioritize the people who are most harmed by the status quo, build racial justice and community well-being.
Nothing about us without us. If we learned anything from this court case, it’s that we cannot trust the mayor or GPD to deal with racism or other wrongdoings. Start a thorough, public process of dealing with the wrongdoing at GPD, acknowledging our community’s needs, and shifting our resources where they belong.
Protest the Mayor’s Executive Session – Monday, May 16, 5:30pm at City Hall (14 Court Sq)
The Mayor called a “special executive session” for Monday, May 16 to discuss the verdict in the discrimination lawsuit against Greenfield and the Police Department. The public is not allowed to attend. According to the rules of executive sessions, if they hold an executive session COUNCILORS AND THE MAYOR WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DISCUSS THE TOPIC PUBLICLY AT ALL, **EVER.** That means there will be no honest accounting for the wrongs done at GPD, or by this mayor or former mayor Martin in enabling those wrongdoings at GPD. As always, the Mayor is trying to brush this under the rug, avoid consequences, and continue with corruption as usual.
The evidence in the court case is DAMNING. We demand public accountability and consequences at GPD!
The council can vote NO to entering executive session and some councilors are ready to do just that. Email and call your councilors, then COME PROTEST WITH US AT 5:30pm, Monday, May 16! Tell the mayor and the council we are watching!
