WORCESTER—Enrique Zuniga had just launched into his presentation to Worcester’s Human Rights Commission about the role of the state’s Police Officer & Training Standards (POST) panel on Monday when the first of many questions seeking elaboration or clarification was posed to him.
Zuniga is the executive director of POST, which was established as part of criminal justice reform legislation passed on Beacon Hill in 2020. POST’s mission is to improve policing and enhance public confidence through a fair process of mandatory certification, discipline, and training for all peace officers in the Commonwealth.
At the start of the meeting, he opened a slide show explaining the two divisions of POST’s work, Certification and Standards, when HRC Chair Ellen Shemitz and her colleagues began asking for further explanation. This initially came with an inquiry about what percentage of complaints about police misconduct came from “municipalities versus the public.”
The vast majority come from incident reports filed by agencies themselves, he said. “Only 10 percent come from the public.”
Certification is required “every three years,” he said. Standards deal “with all matters of complaints and disciplinary records. These are usually quickly resolved. The complaint must be filed within two days. A challenge for everyone is we want credible complaints. Due diligence is required.”
Anonymous complaints are accepted by POST if they are based on factual evidence, he said.
The flurry of questions that followed began with “What constitutes credible evidence?”
Others involved wondered whether there are “internal audits;” whether the number of complaints POST deals with are broken down by race and ethnicity (“not yet”); whether instances of alleged misconduct are prioritized (“if there is a trend in the pattern of behavior or when the chief recommends decertification”); whether improper use of “a name tag” would be considered a violation (“yes”); what percentage of excessive force cases are reported statewide and in Worcester; “what is the makeup of the Commission” (there are nine members); where are hearings held (“primarily in Boston but remote access is available”).
A lengthy conversation took place around the criteria for certification.
Zuniga said correspondence with POST is handled by way of “a general mailbox” right now “but we are rolling out a portal for that purpose.”
Zuniga emphasized that the commission expects complaints to be filed “within two days. This is imperative. People can’t be sitting on this. There is nothing like local cooperation. We know some actions will be challenged by police officers and their union.”
In response to Zuniga’s remarks, HRC member Guillermo Creamer said “The most important thing for us is to know the Worcester numbers, to make sure our police department is upholding our standards.” He added that the WPD does a good job.
Creamer’s observation coincided with that of Shemitz, who asked Zuniga for a listing of complaints involving the WPD for FY 2022 and FY 2023. Zuniga said he would provide this.
A motion for the Worcester Police Department to share POST information on its website was approved.
Member Randy Feldman thanked Zuniga on behalf of the entire HRC for the work POST is doing.
In other business, a discussion ensued after Shemitz noted she was told by the city that subcommittees or work groups the HRC was interested in setting up would be a violation of the open meeting law. As an alternative, she said, individual members could be appointed to address a particular issue “and report back” to the entire HRC.
Before a motion to dissolve the idea of subcommittees or work groups, Creamer pointed out that the posting for a new director of HR “went up today. It should have gone up months ago. We are kind of stalled right now.” Vice Chair Elizabeth O’Callahan agreed. “We cannot move forward,” she said.
A motion to dissolve the concept of subcommittees and work groups while asking individual members to take on specific tasks and to “revisit the issue when the position is filled” was approved unanimously.
Several members questioned why the city manager had not included “a JD degree and civil rights and ADA experience” in his posting for the HR job. This led to a motion to request that city manager Eric Batista place a heavier focus on these as “priorities.” The motion passed, with Creamer opposed.
A motion for Shemitz to replace Creamer as HRC representative to consultations related to filling the newly opened chief equity officer position was approved unanimously. Creamer indicated he was no longer available to serve in that capacity.
Several items of a “clean up” nature were parceled out to individual members to be addressed at the HRC’s March meeting.
Rod Lee is a career journalist, a veteran of the media scene in Central Massachusetts and the author of seven books including the recently published “Gil Cristopher,” a novel about the difficulties associated with aging. He can be contacted at rodlee1963@gmail.com
