Massachusetts police unions appeal to Charlie Baker to veto reform bill

The state’s powerful police unions are launching a last-minute appeal to Gov. Charlie Baker to veto a sweeping police reform compromise they characterize as a “radical, cruel” attack on law enforcement after the House and Senate passed the bill late Tuesday.

“Law enforcement professionals who protect the citizens of this Commonwealth each day are being disregarded, dismissed and disrespected,” said Scott Hovsepian, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police.

Labor leaders representing 30,000 police officers in Massachusetts mobilized swift opposition to the compromise police legislation unveiled on Monday. They criticized lawmakers for moving to vote on the bill barely 24 hours after it was released following “a grossly unfair and opaque conference committee process played out in secret” as lawmakers attempted to reach a consensus on House and Senate versions of police reform bills passed in July.

State Rep. Timothy Whelan — who sat on the six-member conference committee — called the bill a “wish list to the detriment of our process.”

The Cape Cod Republican and former state trooper voted against the bill, telling the Herald it “should have stuck to the core ‘eight that can’t wait’ principles” agreed upon by police unions and the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.

Speaking to reporters after the Senate vote, Senate President Karen Spilka called the bill “landmark” legislation.

It would create a nine-member Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission to oversee policing and with the authority to de-certify officers accused of misconduct — a first in the state’s history.

The bill also aims to ban chokeholds, limit no-knock police warrants in instances where children or people over 65 are present and places a moratorium on facial recognition technology.

It creates a committee to study qualified immunity, a doctrine that protects officers from civil liability in instances of misconduct. The bill takes a first step rolling back those protections by revoking civil liability protections for an officer over actions that result in decertification.

Baker has signaled his support for a bill that would introduce a POST — or certification — system for police accountability, but the Republican governor declined to comment on the meat of the bill on Tuesday, saying he hadn’t had enough time to review the package.

Senators voted 28-12 and House members voted 92-67.

MassCOP, with 4,300 union members, said the bill was “motivated by incidents of police violence in other states, not Massachusetts” — which it says has the third-lowest rate of police killings in the nation.

State Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, one of the crafters of the bill and leader of the Black and Latino caucus, challenged that notion speaking on the House floor.

Ticking off the oft-repeated names of Eric Garner, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Gonzalez listed the names of seven men of color killed by police in Massachusetts and referenced 14 Hispanic men who a U.S. Department of Justice report determined were spat on by Springfield police while handcuffed and asked, “but do you know these names?”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3ql6zyE