Worcester Council Takes First Vote To Remove Police From Schools

WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council on Tuesday took a first swing at a package of police reforms proposed by City Manager Edward Augustus Jr., including an initial vote on a recommendation to remove school police officers.

Augustus made nine police reform recommendations in a Feb. 19 executive order, and each one will be debated and approved separately by the Council in the coming months. Some will require the Council to pass new ordinances, others will require budget amendments.

One of those nine recommendations is removing police from schools. In a 6-5 vote on Tuesday, the Council sent that item to a Council committee for further debate.

"What we're recommending is we come up with a plan work with the community, working with Worcester Public Schools, with Worcester police, for a plan that can make sure our schools are safe without using the current model of officers assigned permanently to our high schools," Augustus said of his proposal.

There are five Worcester officers in the city's high schools, and Augustus' plan would pull them by the end of 2021. Civil rights groups in Worcester want that plan sped up, with officers gone by the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.

"While we understand planning needs to happen, we believe the removal of all police officers needs to begin when students return to school at the beginning of the school year," the Worcester Branch NAACP said in a letter over the weekend. "Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline is a priority for the NAACP."

At-Large Councilor Khrystian King suggested the officers could be removed more quickly because they haven't been in schools for a full year due to the pandemic.

"These things are necessary, they need to happen as soon as possible," he said.

The elimination of police in schools and other reforms was also backed by a part of Worcester's legislative delegation. State reps. John Mahoney, James O'Day, Mary Keefe, Daniel Donahue and David LeBoeuf sent a letter to the Council and Augustus supporting many of Augustus' proposals.

"In particular, we support [Augustus'] recommendations and proposal for reforms that would eliminate police officers in our schools, ban facial recognition as a tool to be used by Worcester's law enforcement and finally create an online use of force database for citizens to use when filing complaints," the joint letter said.

READ: Worcester Police Forum Collides With New Police Reform Proposal

Some who called in to the public comment section of the meeting — and some Councilors — were concerned removing police would make schools less safe. At-Large Councilor Donna Colorio said she's spoken to groups of random people who all told her to keep police in schools. She also said that a "small group" of people are influencing policy in Worcester since June.

"I've reached out to some of my minority community leaders, my Guyana friends, my Nigerian friends, my Kenyan, my Dominican, my Liberian ... I asked them all the same question, and they all gave me the same answers: they supported police in schools," she said.

King ultimately asked the school police officer removal issue be sent to the Council's Education Subcommittee. Colorio and Councilors Candy Mero-Carlson, Gary Rosen, Kathy Toomey and Morris Bergman voted against that move.