Reaching broader proposals

Both groups developed larger plans for the BPD and public safety, of which the SRO and Walk & Talk recommendations are only branches. To get to their big picture suggestions, they had to take a step back and broadly examine the police department’s current practices, and in doing so, came to very different conclusions. Greene and the Reform Committee emphasized past reforms in saying that only a few targeted changes remained to be made.
“Everyone knows that the Brookline police department is a very good department, both statewide as well as nationally. We’re absolutely very good. And no one can deny that,” Greene said. “But no one’s perfect. And the police department’s not perfect. So there are a lot of things that we need to improve.”
This belief was reflected in the wording of the Committee’s report, which suggests reforms to improve “our very good, but not perfect Brookline Police Department.” Fernandez said he does not think such an unequivocal characterization is fair.
“I think that’s a dangerous place to start the conversation because there’s a certain human tendency to believe something’s not a problem for anyone because it’s not a problem for you,” Fernandez said. “But generally speaking, it’s a way of being really dismissive and frankly erasing the stories that so many people shared at these protests last year.”
Jonathan Mande, having been one of the people who spoke at the protests, said that when he joined the Reform Committee, it surprised him how infallible Greene and others saw the police to be. Mande left the Reform Committee due to family health problems, but he said that the approach of the Committee prevented them from engaging in more productive, impactful conversations.
“I don’t believe in tribalism. I don’t believe in idolizing a certain viewpoint so much that you stick within your own tribe and therefore you have to bend together to work against other people and other forces. I don’t believe in that,” Mande said. “I do believe in justice, however, and I didn’t see that justice play out in the way Bernard Greene led the Committee on Police Reform.”
Part of a just approach, according to resident and activist Savyon Cohen, is avoiding bias in your sources of information and counsel. Cohen said she thought this mark was the biggest difference in approach between the two committees.
“One relied essentially on the police for information about the police. That was the reform,” Cohen said. “One used the police constantly. I don’t think reform ever had a meeting where there weren’t police in attendance, being paid to attend.”
Cohen submitted a public records request to determine the extent of such a payment, saying she saw it as holding the committee’s potential recommendations back. What she found was that Former Chief Dan O’Leary, who served as an expert consultant, was paid $125 an hour to do so, for a total of over $100,000 since July.
Hatchett was also compensated for her work on the Committee, at the overtime rate of $60 an hour. Other officers who appeared before the Committee were paid overtime as well, though at slightly lower rates. No other Committee members nor Task Force members were paid for their work.

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A public records request showed that Former Police Chief Daniel O'Leary has been paid $106,625 for his work as an expert consultant on the Police Reform Committee. Other police officers have also been paid for their contributions to the Committee's work. Non-police participants on both committees worked on a volunteer basis.

Fernandez and several others said that the paid participation of officers impacted the conclusions of the Committee – a subcommittee led by a police officer would be hesitant to recommend cuts to the department, they said. According to Fernandez, if we cannot openly question the department, we will never know whether they are worth questioning.
“I just think what we need are bodies in towns that are willing to interrogate, challenge, confront the way that we do things. And if departments like the police department can withstand that challenge, well then we all have more faith in exactly what they’re doing,” Fernandez said. “But if we fail to challenge them in that way, then how can anyone have faith that this department is working well and in the best interest of the community?”
The Task Force took a different route, holding several public hearings to ask the community what they wanted public safety to look like. But according to Fernandez, they decided that approach could not be the only one they took. A survey of the community as a whole, not just those adamant enough to speak up at hearings, was needed to determine what people really thought about the department and in what areas it may be changed.
“We didn’t know how Brookline residents were going to respond to all these questions. But what we knew was if people were going to find validity in our report and our findings and our recommendations, that it had to be grounded somewhere,” Fernandez said. “And of course, we engaged in a robust process of community engagement. But we know that some people need to see hard numbers.”
The Task Force worked with Tufts University to administer a town wide survey, which received over 1,300 respondents and was weighted to be demographically representative of the town as a whole. It indicated general satisfaction with the police department, but also a consensus that they should not be the ones doing certain jobs, like addressing mental health and substance abuse crises.
Anne Weaver, who served on the Task Force’s subcommittee on Vulnerable People and People in Crisis, said that the survey is a mandate to action on something the police department has already identified.
“The BPD folks that have been doing this kind of work, when they ask them about, why are you doing this work? {They} readily state that ‘we’re filling a gap,’” Weaver said. “There weren’t enough services and support. So we started trying to figure out ways of being able to support our community.”