Boston Mayor Michelle Wu mentioned new management on the metropolis’s police division and efforts to clear names that had been now not related from its gang database induced her to alter her earlier view, and assist funding for BPD’s investigative arm.
The flip-flop has the assist of town’s largest police union, however has been criticized by legal justice advocates, suggestions that the mayor addressed on a Monday radio look.
“There were lots of questions about the gang database, how it was being used to potentially feed information to further a school-to-deportation or school-to-prison pipeline,” Wu mentioned on WBUR’s Radio Boston. “I did not believe that the gang database in its form at that point with the structures there should continue because it was causing active harm.”
As a metropolis councilor, Wu mentioned she opted to vote towards an $850,000 grant for the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, primarily based on a suggestion from then-City Councilor and present Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who was sad with the solutions she acquired when chairing a committee listening to on the funding.
Wu mentioned her “no” vote two years in the past stemmed from an absence of readability on how the funds can be used. That yr, whereas campaigning for mayor, she said assist for abolishing the BRIC and dismantling its gang database.
Today, Wu is on the other aspect of the newest City Council vote to reject funding for the BRIC. Following the physique’s 7-5 vote to cross on $2.5 million in state grants earlier this month, the mayor shortly refiled the three rejected $850,000 grants, for fiscal years 2021, 2022, and 2023, and filed a further $850,000 grant from FY20.
The 4 grants, totaling $3.4 million and earmarked for the aim of enhancing expertise aimed toward combating crime, gangs and terrorism, will probably be debated at a Friday listening to of the City Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice committee. The funds will then come earlier than the complete physique for one more vote.
“Fast forward to today,” the progressive mayor mentioned of her change in coverage, there’s new management on the police division and new buildings in place as properly.
The metropolis has applied an Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, she mentioned, and the same enterprise has occurred on the state stage, by way of the Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST Commission.
Further, Wu mentioned she spent “many hours” in her early weeks as mayor discussing the BRIC and its gang database with the police division, conferences that had been aimed toward “understanding some of the changes they were making.”
“One change, for example, was around names that were inactive in terms of any interactions with law enforcement, but had somehow gotten into the database and were just there, always affecting someone’s future potentially,” Wu mentioned. “They’ve changed their procedures around how that database has been maintained, so thousands of names have been removed. Inactive names are regularly taken out.”
The mayor additionally addressed this month’s City Council vote, which was slammed as “petty” by Councilor Michael Flaherty, who had referred to as for bypassing a listening to to right away vote on the grant funds and can chair Friday’s session.
“We were, on the administration side, not expecting that it would be immediately put up for a vote; we expected that it would go into a hearing,” Wu mentioned. “We’re very much and remain prepared to go through that entire legislative process to be clear about what these funds will go to.”
She added, “Even if I were on the Council, I would hesitate to support something without adequate information.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”