City Council should reverse course, accept $13 million federal counterterrorism grant
The Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 showed two things that local policy makers would be wise to remember. First, the Greater Boston area was, and remains, a potential target for terrorists. Second, while first responders did an admirable job saving lives and tracking down the perpetrators in those tense days, a “lack of coordination” hampered the response, as a 2015 after action report concluded.
The not-so-distant history makes it deeply unfortunate that the Boston City Council voted in December to reject a $13 million antiterrorism grant from the federal government. Mayor Michelle Wu on Wednesday asked the council to reconsider, and it should. The main purpose of the grant is to foster collaboration between regional police agencies, which is likely to be a crucial aspect of the response to any future terrorist attack.
The impact of the council’s decision has implications beyond Boston, and the decision has come under criticism from Representative Jake Auchincloss. His district includes Brookline, whose police officers helped respond to the Marathon bombing and which is part of the region covered by the grant. Auchincloss told the Globe that previous grants have been “well used to create better alignment at the regional level for counterterrorism,” a priority for a state that has struggled to knit together a patchwork of police agencies.
“This grant particularly induces that type of cooperation.”
In voting against the money the city has routinely accepted before, at Large City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, who has since been selected as council president, said she did not vote for the grant because “We need more community conversation.” Some councilors asked whether the money would support a controversial but largely unrelated youth gang database, which has faced allegations of racial profiling. On Dec. 11, Boston police Superintendent Luis Cruz sent Louijeune a letter stating that the grant “will not support the Gang Assessment Database or Youth Violence Strike Force.”
The holdup comes against the backdrop of justified fears in the Jewish community about the growing potential for violence. In a congressional hearing in December, FBI Director Christopher Wray noted that he had never seen so many “blinking lights” in his entire career. “Given the steady drumbeat of calls for attacks by foreign terrorist organizations since Oct. 7, we’re working around the clock to identify and disrupt potential attacks by those inspired by Hamas’s horrific terrorist attacks in Israel.”
Boston is not immune from antisemitic violence. A rabbi in Brighton was stabbed in 2021 in broad daylight. The money would support a legitimate need, and, as Auchincloss wrote in a letter to Louijeune, “[i]mpeding its disbursement could undermine the trust of Greater Boston’s Jewish community.”
If the City Council has concerns about how the Boston police use the money, that is a reason for them to exercise greater oversight. It’s not a reason to turn down the grant, especially when doing so prevents neighboring communities from accessing the money too. A decade has passed since the Marathon bombing, but as memories fade, public officials shouldn’t forget the lessons learned. Terrorists living in Cambridge can attack Boston and then flee to Watertown. There’s no excuse for cities in the region to reject help from the federal government meant to prepare them for such worst-case possibilities.