ACLU responds to Gross
Says Facebook post ‘attempt to divert attention’
The ACLU fired back at police Commissioner William G. Gross yesterday, calling his Facebook post slamming the organization “an attempt to divert attention” from a lawsuit seeking gang database records.
In a statement sent to the Herald, Massachusetts ACLU Executive Director Carol Rose said “the Commissioner’s post does not explain why the Boston Police Department has failed to comply with the public records law, and does not answer basic questions about the BPD’s use of its gang database.”
Yesterday, the Herald reported that Gross ripped into the ACLU in a scathing Facebook post from his private account, calling the organization “paper warriors” for its lawsuit against the city. The local chapter of the ACLU and 14 other groups filed a lawsuit on Nov. 15, accusing the department of being secretive about its process of mon- itoring gang members. The organization claimed that by using a point system, the city’s police department targets, labels and investigates a disproportionate amount of black and brown students as it relates to gang affiliations.
Gross, in his Facebook post, said the organization isn’t around when officers are shot, or when his department is helping citizens, but are “always hiding and waiting for a slow news day to justify their existence.”
“No ACLU present when we have to explain to a mother that her son or daughter was horribly murdered by gang violence,” Gross wrote.
Police spokesman Sgt. John Boyle last night stuck to his initial comment that the commissioner “shared his opinion on his personal Facebook page,” and again declined to comment any further. Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office also declined to comment on the matter.
“Commissioner Gross’ accusations appear to be nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the serious issues raised by an ACLU lawsuit that seeks to uncover whether the Boston Police Department is unfairly and arbitrarily targeting people of color,” Rose said in the statement. “In order to make Boston a safe city for all its residents, we must meaningfully address discriminatory policing, and confront the role the gang database plays in the lives of young Black and Latinx people in our city.”