A Path Forward for Beacon's Police/Community Relations

Dear Friends:

Nationwide, relations between police forces and the communities they serve are at an all time low.

In Beacon, we can do better.

Better Together, the Beacon Interfaith Clergy Group, I Am Beacon and a wide range of community organizations are coming together for a four-step process that we hope will improve relations between police and the community here in Beacon.

This is an independent community effort that is supported by Mayor Randy Casale and Chief Douglas Solomon, but is not organized by them, nor is it answerable to them. The details of the process are below, and if you have any questions or want to be involved, please be in touch with Rabbi Brent Spodek or Brooke Simmons.

• Step 1: Listening: On May 31 there will be a focused, guided opportunity for Beacon residents to share their experiences, hopes, fears, ideas, and uncertainties about policing in Beacon. Following the event, we also hope to have tables at locations throughout the city during the first weeks of June, as well as online surveys in English and Spanish to gather thoughts. We are also actively reaching out to current and retired BPD officers to talk to them about their experiences, hopes, fears, ideas, and uncertainties about policing in Beacon. Conversations are underway, and if you or a current or former BPD Officer and would like to add your voice to the conversation, please be in touch with Rabbi Brent Spodek.

• Step 2: Summarizing: After we hear all those voices, a committee will distil all the notes and thoughts recorded at these venues into a list of broad ambitions that Beacon residents have for policing in our town. We intend to share these broad ambitions with the public at a July City Council meeting. If you are interested in being part of this summarizing process, please be in touch with Jason Frydman.

• Step 3: Taking Action: The third step will be for a group of Beacon residents - average community members, as well as individuals with legal and law enforcement experience, and BPD personnel - to turn those broad ambitions into a set of specific action items to which we will ask the city government to commit. We hope these specific actions will bring us closer to the broad ambitions desired by the community. 

• Step 4: Committing: The fourth step will be a pubic meeting in the fall, where the the citizens of Beacon will ask the council and Police Chief Solomon to commit to pursuing this concrete platform—a true product of citizen listening and collaboration-- for shaping police-community relations in Beacon.

We know that the both around our nation and here in Beacon, issues regarding our police and the communities they serve are complex. We don't think this process will solve everything, but we do think that it will allow different parts of our communities to be in conversation with each other and together, to build a better Beacon.

Sincerely,

Brooke Simmons

Rabbi Brent Spodek