LYNN — Armed with signs reading “Back the Blue” and “We love our police,” a small, but energetic group of people held a demonstration in support of police at the Lynn/Nahant Rotary Friday evening.
About eight women were participating in the demonstration shortly after it began, but organizer Kristina Etter was expecting a few more people to show up as the evening progressed.
Etter, a Nahant resident, said she organized the two-hour protest because of the recent efforts to defund the police in various communities across the country, and in light of a proposed wide-ranging police reform bill that has passed in the state Senate, but is still being debated in the House.
“The legislature wants to pass a law that will make it possible to sue the police,” said Etter. “Police are retiring early, they’re quitting, and we need the police now more than ever. We want them to know we support them.”
Lynn resident Donna Harkness, who wore a face covering that read “Tastes like Socialism,” said she wanted to take part in the demonstration because her husband’s cousin and many of her friends are police officers.
“What people are calling for — it’s terrible,” said Harkness. “They won’t be able to do their jobs if they take away any protections.”
The police reform bill would ban chokeholds, allow the State Police leader to be chosen from outside of the department, and clarify a law that some see as a barrier to change, which provides qualified immunity for individual officers.
If approved, the bill would also create a Police Officers Standards and Accreditation Committee, an independent panel of police, community members, a retired judge, and social justice advocates, who would oversee certification, training and decertification of police, and handle misconduct complaints.
Police chiefs from across Massachusetts gathered on Tuesday to condemn the proposed bill, which Hampden Police Chief Jeff Farnsworth, president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, called a rushed effort and knee-jerk response to far-away events.
“It will also cause our current officers to hesitate at times that are most critical for them not to, jeopardizing their own safety and the safety of our residents,” Farnsworth said.
But proponents of the bill, including state Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn) told The Item last week that many officers and police departments are already practicing the reforms contained in the proposed legislation. He said there has been a lot of misinformation in terms of the clarification of qualified immunity.
“The issue of qualified immunity is a separate issue altogether from the indemnification of officers,” Crighton said last week. “If you (as an officer or public employee) thought you could lose your home because of a lawsuit, you couldn’t do your job. The protections are there.”
Several State Police cruisers parked around the Nahant rotary during the “Back the Blue” demonstration. Harkness said there had been a post in a Lynn community group that indicated some people may have been planning to disrupt their protest.
“We want to show our support to law enforcement, the value of having law and order,” said Maria Perez, of Lynn.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
