Police Misconduct in Cambridge, Mass.

Detective Sergeant Thomas Ahern of the Cambridge Police Department was involved in a chaotic street encounter involving a 21 year-old Black man. A video of the encounter, featured in the Boston Globe, displays what the Lawyers’ Committee’s executive director Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal called a “textbook example of police overreach.”

On November 23, 2016, the Cambridge Police targeted the Black man and two witnesses for criminal charges. As our executive director discussed in the Globe:

“This type of incident, where the police are proceeding in an aggressive and excessive manner against civilians — particularly citizens of color — raises a host of community policing problems. It signals to victims of violence that they should be cautious when approaching the police.”

Read the full article in the Boston Globe.