police reforms

Body camera footage that was taken the night of a May 31 anti-police violence rally in Boston and released to the public last week shows police officers liberally spraying nonviolent demonstrators with pepper spray and indiscriminately striking protesters with batons in attacks that appear unprovoked.

House and Senate members approved a criminal justice reform bill that will create a statewide commission empowered to set standards for the certification of police in Massachusetts investigate allegations of misconduct and decertify officers who have engaged in serious misconduct.

City councilors Andrea Campbell and Ricardo Arroyo are looking into the effectiveness of the Boston Police Department’s Gang Database, which holds 160 gangs and over 5,000 individual names, according to data provided to the ACLU in 2019.