Show Your Support for Worcester's Board of Health and NAACP

City Manager Edward Augustus, the Worcester City Council, WPD Chief Steven Sargent

This summer, Worcester's City Council unanimously agreed that racism is a "public health emergency." Just a few days later, Worcester's appointed members of the Board of Health (BOH) introduced 12 recommendations for how the Worcester Police Department could better address systemic racism within the department as well as in how it interacts with the larger Worcester community.

So far, BOH's efforts have been stifled. Board of Health Chair Edith Claros and city officials have stood in the way of the Board's ability to enact these measures, stonewalled public comment, dismissed co-board members' testimonials about race and the WPD, and tried to tilt the scales of public participation in favor of police over Worcester residents.

Clearly, Worcester's leaders would rather this conversation end quietly than actually address the issues that led to the City Council's vote in the first place.

This petition has three demands for officials in Worcester, MA city government:

  • Support the Worcester branch of the NAACP's call that Chairperson Claros resign from the Board of Health
  • Provide an opportunity for the BOH to have a fair and open meeting with public comment regarding race and policing in Worcester
  • Demand that City Manager Edward Augustus, city councilors, and the WPD incorporate the following BOH recommendations into official WPD policies:
1. Acknowledge that white supremacist, racist and bigoted viewpoints are pervasive among a
significant amount of white police officers (and perhaps others) throughout police departments
in the U.S., and that does not exclude the Worcester Police Department.

2. Commit to urgently developing a comprehensive plan to identify (i.e. through previous
actions, social media, background checks, etc.) those police officers that possess these
viewpoints.

3. Once these officers with these views are identified, commit to educate, re‐train and/or if
necessary, preclude (in the case of cadets) or dismiss (in the case of current officers) officers
who possess these viewpoints and are inclined to impose these views to mistreat (i.e. physically,
verbally, legally, etc.) black, brown and other historically discriminated racial and socio‐
economic groups.

4. Be immediately and continuously transparent and fair in the investigation of police officers
who have been accused of police misconduct/brutality.

5. Commit to working with a newly established, community police misconduct review board
whom are comprised of residents of the city of Worcester, are not current or former members
of law enforcement and are mostly members of the following communities: African‐Americans, Latinos, Native Americans; as well as members from the following communities:
a. LGBTQ+
b. Mental Health
c. Homeless
d. Drug/Alcohol Recovery
e. Youth

f. Low-Income
G. Domestic Violence Survivors

6. Commit to developing healthy and non‐violent relationships with all members of the
African‐American community and other members of communities that have a history of
suffering police brutality and misconduct.

7. Establish a consistent periodic schedule to update the members of the BOH and the
Worcester Community (i.e. via the media and in‐person community meetings, etc) on the
progress of their efforts.

8. Commit to developing healthy and non- violent relationships with all members of the African-American community and other members of communities that have a history of suffering police brutality and misconduct.

9. Adopt the element of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus“ 10 Point Plan” that includes this specific item: Adopt clear statutory limits on police use of force, including choke-holds and other tactics known to have deadly consequences. Require independent investigation of officer-related deaths. Require data collection and reporting on race, regarding all arrests and police use of force by every department.

10. Adopt the element of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus“ 10 Point Plan” that includes this specific item: Civil Service Exam Review and Oversight: Establishes an Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity to establish guidelines and review for diversity plans for all state agencies; Establishes a peace officer exam advisory board to review examinations for appointment and promotion of peace officers.

11. Commit to providing training on and implementation of internal and external de- escalation resources.

12. Establish a consistent periodic schedule to update the members of the BOH and the Worcester Community (i.e. via the media and in-person community meetings, etc) on the progress of your efforts.

Petition by
Defund WPD WPD
Defund WPD WPD
Worcester, Massachusetts
Sponsored by
Defundwpd_transparent_2
Defund WPD

To: City Manager Edward Augustus, the Worcester City Council, WPD Chief Steven Sargent
From: [Your Name]

Defund WPD, along with the signees below, support of the Board of Health’s vote of “No Confidence” and the NAACP’s call for Edith Claros, the Board’s Chair to resign immediately. Rather than be stifled, we demand 1) the Board of Health needs to be allowed to hold public hearings, as originally proposed, to hear from the community. We find City Solicitor Traynor’s opinion that the Board of Health needs to refrain from engaging with the public absurd, and contrary to the operation of every other public body in our city. 2) We fully support the call to address systemic racism as a public health crisis, and wish to see our Board of Health on the front-lines of dissecting, examining, and combating this crisis. 3) Further, the City administration and the WPD immediately put into action the 12 recommendations voted on and approved by the Board of Heath which are necessary to start the process of eradicating systemic racism from within the WPD.

On June 11, Board of Health member David Fort sent an email to other board members and city staff with recommendations for how the WPD can better address systemic racism and discrimination. These recommendations were discussed during a June 25 meeting and supported by all members of the BOH except Chairperson Edith Claros. Following Black BOH members’ sharing of personal experiences with racial profiling by the Worcester Police, Claros ignored these accounts and dismissed Fort’s recommendations as “divisive.”

During the BOH’s August meeting, Claros, in violation of City Manager Edward Augustus’ directive, moved to allow mid-meeting comments from local police union president Sgt. Richard Cipro despite advertising ahead of time that the meeting would be closed to public comment. During a September BOH meeting the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that Chairwoman Claros “cut off previous board discussions about police brutality and institutional racism in the Police Department, while allowing police officials to speak without interruption.”

Claros’ double standards and mistreatment of other Board members led to a 4-1 vote of no-confidence against her in September. The Worcester branch of the NAACP has criticized her as “an impediment to any discussion of systemic racism within the Worcester Police Department” and has called for her to resign her post before her term expires in December.

Claros and other staff members’ dismissal of Fort’s recommendations also fly in the face of the city’s Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), an effort developed with the vision of Worcester becoming the healthiest city in New England by 2020. One of the top priorities of CHIP was systemically eliminating institutional racism and discrimination by "integrat[ing] language about equity into the mission, vision, and strategic plans of CHIP partner organizations." One of those partner organizations is the Worcester Police Department, and David Fort's recommendations are perfectly inline with the goals of CHIP. For city staff to dismiss Fort's recommendations as outside of the realm of the BOH’s responsibility is to undermine one of the most ambitious and highly regarded of Worcester's undertakings.

Back in June, Worcester’s City Council voted 11-0 in favor of a motion that called racism a “public health emergency” and pledged to enact policies that would promote equity, health, and the public safety of all Worcester citizens, especially those who are Black and Brown. Since that vote, the City Council has done little to uphold that pledge. We demand that City Manager Edward Augustus, the City Council, and Chief of Police Steven Sargent put actions behind their words, starting with adopting the BOH’s 12 recommendations into official WPD policies and allowing the Board of Health to continue its work on this issue with open, honest, and transparent discussion with the public about racism and police in Worcester.