New Bedford councilors table motion to condemn report on alleged racial profiling by police southcoasttoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from southcoasttoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
NEW BEDFORD The city s police department and union, the mayor and some city councilors have voiced doubt, disagreement with and anger over a report recently published by a Boston-based youth advocacy group on policing and racial profiling in New Bedford.
Based on its analysis of data provided by the police department, Citizens for Juvenile Justice found the city s police department has been policing Black people, including youth, in lower-income neighborhoods at significantly higher rates than white people. The organization said the findings suggest racial bias in policing.
The New Bedford Police Department issued a response two days after the organization released the report, stating that while it takes the issues the report discusses seriously, it is concerned about the accuracy and credibility of the report.
Read It: New Bedford Police Use of Force Final Report
The Commission on Police Use of Force Policies, chaired by city councilor Brian Gomes, was created in June by Mayor Jon Mitchell. Since then, the 22-member panel met behind closed doors on a weekly basis for six months to conduct the bulk of its work, and held two public meetings via Zoom.
News of the report s release came Thursday in the form of a press release from the communications arm of the New Bedford Police Department. The NBPD s current use of force policies are laid out in three sections of the department s policy manual. Download links to to those PDFs are available here.