Vol. 72/No. 26      June 30, 2008

Leonard was testifying at a June 3 public hearing of the Boston City Council’s Committee on Public Safety. The socialist candidate, who will be on the November ballot, is a meatpacking worker who has been active in union organizing campaigns and the fight for the legalization of all immigrants.

According to a brochure distributed by the Boston Police Department in public schools and in the community since last fall, the cop-sponsored program “is designed to disarm youth ages 17 and under, by seeking voluntary consent from their parents to allow police to search for illegal firearms” in private homes.

The brochure says the program is based on “referrals” by “a parent who self-reports, by a community based agency, the schools, or police officers familiar with the youth,” as well as anonymous tips.

Acting on a “referral” a three-person unit, which may include a police-approved clergy person, would knock on the selected home and ask the parents if they would like them to search their child’s room.

The City Council hearing was considering a resolution urging the police department to add blanket immunity from prosecution to the program or supposedly ensure that the “consent to search” is “voluntary” by making police visits to homes “informational only, with parents asked to call if they would like for a search to be conducted.” More than 40 people attended the hearing.

In a briefing last year, the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union questioned whether the consent on which the Safe Homes program rests is “knowing or genuinely voluntary.” The ACLU noted, “Even assuming that language is not a barrier to understanding, few people are able to say no when confronted at their door by three police officers and possibly a member of the clergy.” Carol Rose, Massachusetts ACLU executive director, spoke in favor of the resolution.

“I have been beaten by the police. I have had my car blocked in by the police. I am totally against the Safe Homes Initiative,” Yvonne Desmond of the Association of Black Social Workers said at the hearing. “Constitutional protections are so iffy for people in the Black community that someone has to pretty much sign in blood that they will do no harm.”

Speaking in favor of the cop-backed program and against the resolution, Talia Riveira of the Black Ministerial Alliance said, “I would rather get the gun out of the hand of the kid than let the kid play with a gun and kill himself.”

SWP candidate Leonard, who is running in a district that includes neighborhoods targeted by the program, noted that “working people are expressing their opinion about this program by not calling the police.”

In the guise of a “voluntary” program to uphold “safety,” Leonard said, it seeks to legitimize the ability of cops to barge into private homes and victimize working people, trampling on the right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment right to be free from arbitrary search and seizure.

“As the world financial crisis deepens and the wealthy rulers of this country expand their wars of plunder, working people will need all our rights even more to defend ourselves, to fight back against the attacks by the employers and their government, to build our unions and not fear that the police will be knocking on our door asking to come in,” the socialist candidate said.
 
 
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Oppose 'anti-terror' measures
'We're fulfilling our pledge to join workers' struggles'
Interview with socialist candidates  
 
 
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