Police Reform is off Track

Facing an angry public and the threat of a budget referendum after the murder of George Floyd, the selectboard formed the community safety committee. This was to be a civilian committee composed entirely of residents, especially people at risk, and explicitly excluding police, modeling civilian authority over police. The committee produced a report with 41 recommendations. BCS’ SAFE policing plan is recommended in its entirety as number 38 and and as number 37 specifically for disarming police for community tasks (such as in schools, official meetings). At the January 19 selectboard meeting member Brandie Starr asked for a motion to approve the full committee report: it was roundly praised. Unfortunately no one noticed that instead of a motion to approve the full report, the board approved a motion to send the report to town staff for more information. “Town Staff” turned out to mean pro tem police chief Mark Carignan. In March the report was again heaped with praise, and staff submitted an “implementation table”. The town manager said the full report should be approved as one proposal. But the town staff didn’t just supply information. Their “implementation table” rejected key recommendations of the committee. In August the board unveiled Elwell’s memo that attempts to explain the differences between the recommendations and the implementation table.

At the December 14 meeting Mr. Elwell submitted his re-revised “table”. While discussing the proposal by Brattleboro Common Sense about police with guns in schools and meetings, Town Manager Elwell said Brattleboro’s meetings are dangerous because people are considering controversial issues, and so, the police need guns to protect themselves. Two people asked for evidence about these dangerous meetings, but he avoided the question, and a while later member Dan Quipp said that people were talking too much about the BCS SAFE Policing plan. Despite the specific purposes of the committee about safety and feeling of safety among the people, the concern of many officials has been the safety and feelings of the police. Selectperson Tim Wessel dissed the committee and promoted the “Blue Lives Matter” trope in comments in the Reformer last January, also with praise.

A dozen lofty and complex proposals in the “table” are rejected but awaiting funding, or approved, but requiring info that has already been supplied. The board rubber-stamped the rejections without a public hearing. Maybe they were just overwhelmed and confused, but it was an undemocratic thing to do, and it left control of the issue to the police. This was supposed to be a civilian-led process. Many proposals were complex and required separate consideration, but the board pretended to approve the whole proposal and left the whole proposal for “staff” to consider outside public view.

The motion to approve the full report became a motion to get more information, and more information became full authority over the report. The paperwork has been juggled and shuffled, the committee report has been rejected in parts and praised to the skies. The police were under civilian oversight, and the civilian committee is under police oversight. Selectboard Zoom meetings keep everyone muted, and no hearing is scheduled. If someone wants to start an official petition about it, social distancing presses the mute button on that. The last straight-forward official statement about the report came from Brandie Starr almost a year ago. In the razzle-dazzle of praise and paper-juggling we lost sight of the democratic civilian-led process that this was supposed to be. Let’s see if we can get it started again – Friday at 2:30.

Contact info@BrattleboroCommonSense.org