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WORCESTER In public meetings last year, Police Chief Steven M. Sargent insisted his department should not be lumped in with others across the country facing allegations of systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“I’ve said many times, we have not observed - in my 35 years, you know, racism within the department,” Sargent told Human Rights commissioners in September, echoing comments he made during a contentious back-and-forth with Board of Health officials a month earlier.
Sargent, appointed chief in 2016 after three decades in his hometown department, told officials he did not believe institutional racism or implicit bias existed in the Police Department in Worcester, the second-largest city in New England.