PUSHING AN OVERRIDE
Pressley, Rollins call on lawmakers to reject Baker’s police amendments
‘... Governor Baker is once again demonstrating his disregard for the communities most impacted by our broken status quo system of injustice.’
AYANNA PRESSLEY U.S. congresswoman
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins are leading the charge of local, state and faith leaders calling on lawmakers to reject Gov. Charlie Baker’s amendments to the “long overdue” police reform bill he returned to the Legislature on Thursday.
“This bill is already a compromise and should serve as the floor that we will build upon going forward,” Pressley said in a statement Friday. “By refusing to sign the legislation, sending it back to the Legislature and demanding amendments that will water down important aspects of the bill, Governor Baker is once again demonstrating his disregard for the communities most impacted by our broken status quo system of injustice.”
Pressley later joined Rollins in expressing disappointment that Baker “chose to blink and potentially stand on the wrong side of history.”
The governor’s amendments “serve to ignore through delay the very people and communities most impacted and harmed by the police,” according to a statement that also included state Reps. Russell Holmes and Liz Miranda; Rep.-elect Brandy Fluker Oakley; Boston City Council President Kim Janey and councilors Michelle Wu, Julia Mejia, Lydia Edwards, Andrea Campbell and Ricardo Arroyo; Suffolk County Register of Probate Felix Arroyo; Iván EspinozaMadrigal of Lawyers for Civil Rights and Rahsaan Hall of ACLU Massachusetts.
“But poor, Black and brown communities have fought through exhaustion and heartbreak before,” they said. “And we will do it again.”
Baker spokeswoman Sarah Finlaw said, “The administration rejects the premise of this statement, as the Governor filed the first bill on the matter six months ago and made clear he wants to sign a bill.”
Baker sent the long-debated bill back to the Legislature on Thursday with amendments nixing portions dealing with the use of facial recognition technology — which lawmakers wanted to restrict only to the Registry of Motor Vehicles — and police training that he said “introduce barriers to effective administration and the protection of public safety.”
ressley called facial recognition technology “fundamentally flawed and discriminatory.” She urged lawmakers to reject both that and what she said was Baker’s attempt at “undermining the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission” that would be created by the bill.
Members of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization said Baker’s amendments “seriously diminish important provisions of the bill” designed to ensure “what happened to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Michael Brown … never happen again.”
“Without the full package of reforms put together by the Legislature, we are back at square one,” GBIO Co-Chair Beverly Williams said.
Baker said he won’t sign the legislation unless lawmakers address his concerns. While the bill passed the Senate with a vetoproof majority, it fell short of that in the House’s 92-67 vote.