As Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” played, Jamie Anthony ran up and down the streets of New Bedford using her camera to document people of every generation participating in a Black Lives Matter march this past June.
When her legs got tired, Anthony, 23, sat on top of a car that was driving slowly with the protest and was able to really take in the different ages of all the people marching, which included people who had already marched for racial equity in their lifetimes.
“It was just an impactful moment because it was almost like we took a step back in time and I was looking at history repeat itself . but also seeing the triumph and strength and tears in my community,” Anthony said recently. “It was an amazing moment for me.”
NEW BEDFORD The night before Christmas Eve, the New Bedford Commission to Review NBPD Use of Force Policies released its final report after a six month review of the police department s policies.
The report offers recommended changes to the policies and states the recommendations “recognized and adopted language to meet the need of strengthening the emphasis on ‘duty to intervene’ and ‘de-escalation’ components for all three policies.”
One recommendation states that even if the requirement to intervene is spelled out in the department’s rules and regulations, it should be reiterated in the Use of Force policies.
In June, after days of protests in the city calling for police reform and an end to police brutality, Mayor Jon Mitchell announced the creation of the commission as part of his commitment to the Obama Foundation’s Mayor’s Pledge.
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.