According to Worcester Magazine, Worcester Police Officer Tom Daly said the officer’s absence was due to the short notice of the rally, and they support the Somerville Police Department’s cause.
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If black lives mattered, then black males, who are less than 10 percent of the overall USA population, wouldn’t make up more than 35 percent of those in jail and prison. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is promising not to remove a Black Lives Matter banner from City Hall, which hangs above Pardi, despite complaints from police officers in the state. Somerville Police Employees Association president Michael McGrath says his officers support the “cor”.
“The rally will be peaceful and respectful, but will demonstrate the solidarity of police organizations in MA to the exclusionary message that the banner sends”, officer Michael McGrath, Somerville Police Employee’s Association president, said.
If black lives mattered, we all would acknowledge on every Fourth of July that 20 percent of the population at the time of the American Revolution was enslaved [“Black Lives Matter activists in Rio to highlight racism”, seattletimes.com, July 20].
Curtatone, the son of Italian immigrants and the mayor since 2004, has argued that standing up for minority residents and supporting police aren’t “competing interests”.
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone has declined repeated requests by the city police officers’ union to replace the banner with one that reads “All Lives Matter”. He noted the city has hung a banner at police headquarters honoring the officers slain in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Where this is happening is in cities. Afterward I received an overwhelming response from people in my city thanking me for continuing to hang that banner along with the one at our police headquarters.
In response, Somerville Police Chief David Fallon chided the union for getting involved in the debate.
For now, we can only be grateful that increasing numbers of people understand that the safety of young black men and police officers are bound up together, as they always have been, and both of these are bound up with other practices that reflect a deeply embedded legacy of marginalization. He said then it was meant to recognize that “structural racism” exists in society and stressed it wasn’t a criticism of his police department.
Curtatone has since said he will also seek to equip officers with body cameras, something some civil rights activists have called for in the wake of police-involved killings.
“What our residents and our officers made clear is they reject the notion that there are two sides to pick here”, Curtatone said.
Stay on topic – This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand.
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Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk.
