First modification: 25/05/2021 – 16:34
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Chelsea (United States) (AFP)
Since George Floyd’s death exactly one year ago, the police have been the target of continuous criticism across the United States.
In Chelsea, a small town of 40,000 predominantly Hispanic residents in the Boston suburbs, the atmosphere weighs heavily on local officials, who feel unfairly confused with those accused of being racist or violent.
“That’s a conversation you basically hear almost every day,” said Jose Rodriguez, a police officer in Chelsea. “Morale is generally in the doldrums in our profession.”
Some can’t stand it. In New York, which has the largest police force in the country, some 2,600 employees left the force last year, up from just 1,509 in 2019, excluding retirements, which also soared.
“I know some who have retired,” confirmed Rodríguez. Partly because they reached the age to do so, “but also because they didn’t want to deal with responsibilities anymore and stay in this profession, given the recent events and the negative focus that exists on us.”
When it comes to recruiting, “the statistics show … it’s very difficult to get people to be police today,” Sgt. Joseph Bevere said. “And that’s a shame (…) It’s a great profession because you can help people.”
After a difficult year “we have to restore that confidence,” he said.
Added to the new focus on police brutality and systemic racism are the marks of former President Donald Trump’s tenure and his aggressive rhetoric on illegal immigration in Chelsea, where 67% of the population is Hispanic.
“In the Hispanic community I see many people who are afraid to speak to us,” especially the undocumented who fear deportation, Rodríguez said.
Chelsea police do not cooperate with the immigration police (ICE), he recalled. “Sometimes you have to make people reason, reassure them.”
– “In the same basket” –
Chelsea police officers boast of having established a close relationship with the population in order to limit tensions, Sgt. Bevere said. “We take steps to ensure that what happens in other parts of the country does not happen here.”
In the mid-1990s, the police chief, Edward Flynn, began recruiting officers from a more diverse background as a result of pressure from activists, a breaking point with the past, explained Gladys Vega, director of the local association La Collaborative. Today Chelsea has one of the most diverse police forces in the state of Massachusetts.
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“People should be inspired by the relationship we’ve built with the (Chelsea) police, because it works,” Vega said. “We are in permanent communication.”
For the activist, in Chelsea most people feel that the police “are at the service of the people, whether they have papers or not, and that things are not done by force.”
Several Chelsea police officers, including their boss Brian Kyes, welcome the arrival of the mini cameras now carried by officers on patrol and in field operations, aimed at enhancing transparency.
“They have put us all a bit in the same basket” after the events of 2020, lamented policeman Paul McCarthy in reference to the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a white policeman, and Breonna Taylor, also black, as a result of shots being fired by police officers who unexpectedly entered her house while she was sleeping.
“We did a lot to be accepted by this community,” said the agent. “And it is frustrating when we see that it is generalized to us, associating us with something that happened to the other end of the country.”
© 2021 AFP
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