On the two-year anniversary of the police killing of our neighbor, Michael Conlon, Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller sent a city-wide email that regrettably did not center Michael as a person, celebrate his life or mourn his death. Nor did the email talk about the importance of mental health or offer resources to support Newtonians in case of mental and emotional distress. Instead, Mayor Fuller announced the Conlon family’s wrongful death suit against the city and the officers who shot Michael, and used the next five paragraphs to mount a preemptive defense against the lawsuit that we find infuriating.
We are writing on behalf of DefundNPD, a multigenerational community group that has been working to advocate for a more holistic and imaginative approach to public safety in Newton since George Floyd was murdered.
Of Michael’s death, Fuller’s email said: “That tragic incident left behind a grieving family, poignantly distraught police officers, and a disquieted Police Department and community” – framing the event as one with three equal victims, as if no one bears responsibility for what happened.
She wrote “a fair, impartial and transparent inquest” found that “…when Newton Police Officers fired their weapons, any reasonable law enforcement officer in the same position would reasonably believe that fellow officers as well as others were in imminent danger of being seriously injured or killed.”
But this is not an exoneration of the officers, as some of our representatives pointed out. It is an indictment of our public safety system as a whole.
“It is important to understand that critical life or death situations such as this occur in a split second,” Fuller claimed. But this isn’t true. In fact, critical life or death situations are created by a series of conscious and intentional decisions that constrict the choices police have in the moment they are faced with a potentially dangerous situation with a person in the midst of a mental health crisis.
What are those conscious and intentional decisions? Mayor Fuller has not piloted, studied or even publicly discussed expanding emergency services to include experts to deal with mental health and other non-police matters like houselessness and substance abuse–even though the former police chief himself said that fighting crime constitutes only a small percentage of police workload. She failed to respond to the idea of a non-police emergency responder program when it was proposed by her own Newton Police Reform Task Force, later when city councilors voted unanimously to support the idea of a non-police emergency responder program, and also when it was proposed by us as a good use of the city’s ARPA funds.
With her refusal to act, Mayor Fuller has in effect repeatedly rejected holistic approaches to public safety, even knowing such approaches are implemented in dozens of municipalities or community organizations nearby and across the country, saving lives and money. Instead, she has doubled down on the erroneous belief that police by themselves can address mental health calls which have increased in Newton from 270 to over 450 in the last five years, according to police department data.
It is decisions like these that create situations in which police feel they have no other option but to kill a member of our community.
We believe it’s time to open public discussion about public safety in Newton–something Mayor Fuller has not done despite our repeated requests. In nearby Cambridge, for example, police recently killed Arif Sayed Faisal, also in apparent mental health distress, the day before Fuller’s email was sent. Unlike here in Newton, less than three weeks later, after public pressure mounted, the City of Cambridge agreed to hold community meetings to air concerns, and the community is holding demonstrations drawing hundreds of people to keep the pressure on until police are held accountable for Faisal’s wrongful death.
Change can happen and it must happen soon.
Police killings in the US are at a record high, just as an ever increasing number of us experience mental health challenges. Yet, we keep handling this exploding problem with police, senselessly expecting a different outcome. Isn’t it time we have an open public discussion to apply our formidable brainpower to develop a better approach to public safety? One in which emergencies are minimized by getting people the housing, food, jobs, education and healthcare they need, and where emergencies are handled nonviolently and with compassion?
Our hearts broke hearing the Conlons speak out for the first time about their pain, and while nothing will bring Michael back, we hope the Conlon family’s brave lawsuit will bring public attention to the high cost of our myopic public safety system. For example, why were officers dispatched to the scene of Michael Conlon’s shooting told that it was a suspected armed robbery in progress when there was never at any point a question of robbery? Why were responding officers not told that there was a mental health situation when the 911 call clearly showed there was? Why did Newton police not wait for the trained crisis negotiator they called to arrive? These issues are not isolated; they are systemic issues that, while not part of an inquest, must be addressed if a city is to improve public safety.
We believe the Conlons have a strong case – because nothing can change the facts: Twenty-eight year old Michael Conlon had a mental health emergency, police responded to the 911 call, and they killed Michael.
Newton, like other cities, deserves a plan to ensure that no other community member is killed by police, but it will require imaginative leadership, openness to critique, and residents who are willing to step up to demand that our representatives live up to the high standards of accountability and care that we all deserve.
Naomi Goldstein, Emma Kellstein, Albert Leisinger, Nora Lester Murad
On behalf of Defund NPD, a multigenerational abolitionist community group in Newton, MA
