| Wicked Local
While the Cambridge Police Department is ahead of other Massachusetts forces when it comes to new reforms made at the state level, activists see an opportunity for changes not covered in the state’s bill.
Take weapons. While there’s nothing in the bill limiting weaponry, Cambridge Police Commissioner Dr. Branville Bard has been working with one local activist, Loren Crowe, in re-examining the department’s inventory.
The conversation started after CPD released a 97-page property inventory in July, which included 64 Colt M4 rifles, 11 sniper rifles and a Lenco Bearcat, an armored tactical vehicle.
More: Cambridge Police defends arsenal of weapons
When Crowe saw the list, he took to Twitter to offer his assessment. Crowe spent seven years in the Army, including two years in Afghanistan, so his breakdown of CPD’s inventory, which spanned across many tweets in the same thread, provided context for the ongoing conversation of ‘how much is too much?’
The public response was swift, with Councilor Marc McGovern calling the list “disturbing.”
At the time, Bard did not feel the inventory was excessive; there were explanations for why the department had the inventory it had, he said. But nonetheless he was open to conversations about possible changes.
And Bard stood by his word.
It started with a lunch, organized by former mayor Anthony Galluccio, in which Crowe and Bard got to know each other. Crowe said at first he was skeptical that meeting with Bard would lead to any real change. But then, once they started talking, they bonded over shared challenges in their own experiences, Crowe said.
“There’s a lot of overlap in hiring between the military and local police forces. During my time in the Army, the organization was in transition, around the mid-2000s,” Crowe said. “There was a lot of organizational introspection about culture, methods and mission, and a lot of difficult change.”
The two had a frank conversation, Crowe said, and met at least two more times, exchanging emails and phone calls in between and after.
“He’s obviously extremely well-educated in his profession,” said Crowe. “I was impressed that he was willing to listen because, let’s be real, who the hell am I? I’m not in charge of a group; I’m an individual. I appreciated that he took the time to talk to me, and that things actually came of it.”
As a result of the conversations, Bard decided to eliminate camouflage uniforms, which are perceived as militaristic, and reviewed CPD’s weapons inventory. Bard has already identified 20% of the department’s high-power weapons – i.e. long guns like sniper rifles, M4s and shotguns — that could be removed and is going to reduce less-than-lethal inventory, like certain out-of-date shotguns and rubber rounds, by 30%.
The department is currently in the process of retiring these weapons.
“Statute requires me to auction them off, but the object is for the guns not to end up back on the street,” Bard said. “What I’m going to have to do is engage the city solicitor to try to seek an exemption so we can destroy the guns as opposed to auction them. So you may hear me use language like ‘retire’ or ‘reduce’ as opposed to ‘get rid of’ because I’m not sure I can right away until I follow some procedures to be able to destroy the weapons.”
These modifications don’t really change what the department does, they only improve it, Bard said.
“We tend to treat advocates like adversaries,” Bard said. “We keep saying we want the community to see us as part of the community, but then we keep throwing up barriers to fight against that incorporation. It does us more harm than good.”
Bard said he’s encouraged by local advocates, like Crowe, who push for positive changes.
“I’m thrilled he did something with the conversation,” said Crowe. “I haven’t seen the inventory of what they’re actually getting rid of, so we’ll see how much of the problem that addressed. But 20 and 30% are big numbers. I think Bard deserves a lot of credit for what he’s doing.”
It was Bard’s openness to change that made Crowe open to joining the newly formed Public Safety Task Force, which will examine ways to reform community safety with a focus on the potential creation of a first-responder force. The force would respond to certain calls that may not require a police officer.
Crowe said there’s still the outstanding issue of the BearCat, which he’d like to see off the streets. And he isn’t the only one. In a recent op-ed published in the Chronicle, The Black Response demanded that CPD get rid of the BearCat, saying military equipment does not make cities safer.
When asked if he was open to retiring the BearCat, Bard said it’s considered a regional asset, acquired after the Marathon bombing. Police did not have adequate protection against gunfire, and none of their vehicles could withstand or protect from explosions. He said the department is looking at alternatives, but those conversations are just at the beginning stages.
“The two things that police officers hate are change and the way things are. We tend to be indignant when we should be introspective. When that change seeks to hold us accountable, or threatens our authority, or places checks on our power, it’s not surprising that people fight even harder against it,” Bard said. “But that really does us a disservice. We always have to be willing to have those tough conversations. It will help us improve our service and product and we should welcome that.”
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