Tag Archives: Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme

InCity Voices

This just in! Worcester top cop Gary Gemme says au revoir!

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Right now! Main South! Foot patrol in the neighborhood! Thank you, Chief Gemme! pics:R.T.

Statement by Mayor Joseph M. Petty on the retirement of Police Chief Gary J. Gemme:
 
For more than thirty years Chief Gemme has served the people of Worcester, over a decade as our police chief. 

In his time as the head of our police force he has overseen tremendous advancements in technology and crime analytics, making Worcester one of the safest of all cities in Massachusetts.
 
His lifelong commitment to our City was exemplified by his belief in community policing and his dedication to relationship building between his department and our neighbors. 

Chief Gemme oversaw the expansion of neighborhood crime watches, foot patrols in our downtown, and numerous programs which encouraged positive engagement with our City’s young people.
 
Chief Gemme made the WPD a leader in technology but never forgot that it is the relationship with the community that is the best crime prevention strategy. 

I wish him all the best in his well-earned retirement.
 

InCity Voices

Arresting kids in the Worcester Public Schools

By Gordon Davis
 
At least 19 students have been arrested in the Worcester Public Schools between September 2015 and November 23, 2015. Of that number, at least two children were arrested at the middle school level.
 
The two arrests at the middle school level are especially concerning, due to the young age of the children. I find it hard to believe the children had to be arrested at school. With all of the doctors of education in the Worcester Public Schools, there must be an alternative to arresting young children in the middle or elementary schools. There should be a City of Worcester policy against arrest children at middle or elementary schools.
 
Because of the political hysteria, based to some extent on racism, some people on the Worcester City Council and the Worcester School Committee of Worcester ordered police into our school without a Memorandum of Understanding and appropriate knowledge of the police officers’ duties or restrictions.

This action was not well thought out and now the City of Worcester is out of compliance with the statutes. Being out of compliance might mean that all of the Worcester Public Schools students arrested might have been unlawfully arrested at school with right of causal action.
 
M.G.L. Chapter 71 Section 37 P requires that a School System have in place a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Police Department:
 
“The superintendent and the chief of police shall enter into a written memorandum of understanding to clearly define the role and duties of the school resource officer which shall be placed on file in the office of the school superintendent.”
 
Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme has stated to the local press that he feels that the vast majority of people/parents supports police in our schools.  Unfortunately for us, Chief Gemme is spinning as he offers no evidence. The Massachusetts Human Rights group is collecting signatures of a petition on the issue with more than 100 signatures at last count.
 
Chief Gemme has made another presumption in that he says the cops in the schools are doing good. Without a MOU it is not clear what the they are doing. There is no evidence that the police are improving safety and education.

There are several reports, including an ACLU report, that shows police in the schools are a source of students leaving school and then going into the “school to prison pipeline.” Many of these students are from poor and minority neighborhoods.
 
On the issue of the MOU Chief Gemme asserts that he does not want the police to become school disciplinarians. The facts show that the police officers are already the school disciplinarians. According to Public Safety Liaison Officer for the Worcester Public Schools, Robert Pezella, most of the arrests of students was for disruption and disorderly.

Disruption is not a crime anywhere and should have been handled administratively per Chapter 222. Disorderly is vaguely defined and subjective. The actions of the students should likely have also been adjudicated under Chapter 222.
 
The cat was let out of the bag when Mr. Pezzella stated to the local press that the MOU would likely not be approved until after a safety audit was completed. 

The question Mr. Pezella has unintentionally pointed to is why cops were put into the schools BEFORE the Safety Audit was completed!!!
 
I believe Mr. Pezella is a good man who has been asked by the City to clean up a mess created by Worcester School Committee woman Dianna Briancharia and Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney. Mr. Pezella several years ago helped my wife with an issue at UMass Hospital – he was excellent.
 
This fiasco of putting police into our public schools possibly is being covered up. Mr. Pezzella has not mentioned how parents, students, teachers, principals and advocates will have input into the so called Safety Audit or the MOU. 
 
This statement from Mr. Pezzella is troubling:
 
“There’s a fine line between disciplinary and public safety and, in some cases, student unrest could lead to a possible arrest of a student.”
 
Like his misstatement about disruptions, student unrest is not a crime either.

For teenagers it is normalcy.

The question arises about a possible bias on the part of Mr. Pezella’s thinking about students. The use of the phrase “fine line” is curious on the part of Mr. Pezella, as the statute makes it clear that cops are not authorized to enforce school policy, only law enforcement and security. Everything else should be administratively adjudicated.
 
”School resource officer”, a duly sworn municipal police officer with all necessary training, up-to-date certificates or a special officer appointed by the chief of police charged with providing law enforcement and security services to elementary and secondary public schools.
 
The losers in all of this are the children in the Worcester Public Schools who are compelled to go into a learning environment in which they can be arrested on the most frivolous or subjective of reasons without recourse to their rights found in Chapter 222. The environment is filled with police officers who do not know for certain what they can or cannot do because there is no MOU. An environment created by the racist rants of some Worcester city officials. 

InCity Voices

Worcester gun buy-back December 12 – Mayor Joe Petty Calls for Statewide Gun Buyback Day

For the fourteenth annual Goods For Guns Day, 16 cities and towns in Central Massachusetts have scheduled their gun buyback day for December 12th, in honor of the victims who were lost in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, on December 14th, 2012. 

Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty is calling on his fellow mayors to join him to make the anniversary of the massacre the yearly, statewide gun buyback day.  

“Today I’m asking my fellow mayors to work within their own cities, and with their elected officials and community partners, to join us and honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting by making our cities safer and healthier,” Mayor Petty said. “The date of this gun buyback effort marks three years since the tragic shooting in Newtown. We remember those victims in a special way, and are dedicating this program in their memory, and to all of those that have been lost in these shocking incidents.

“There have been so many mass shootings:  Aurora, Virginia Tech, Charleston, Umpqua, Littleton, Fort Hood and so many more.  The list just keeps growing.  I can think of no better way to remember this and every other tragedy than by honoring it with a day dedicated to gun safety

“This is not just about getting guns off the streets, it’s about making sure that if you have a gun in your home, that it’s secured.  It’s about safer streets and healthier homes and making sure that the violence we saw in Newtown doesn’t happen here,” Petty said.

Dr. Michael Hirsh is the medical director for Worcester’s Division of Public Health, as well as a pediatric trauma surgeon and longtime gun safety advocate.  “This isn’t just about crime; it’s about health,” said Dr. Hirsh.  “An unsecured weapon in the home is a public health danger that leads to more frequent homicides, burglaries, lethal domestic violence, accidental shootings and suicide in the home.”

“Any additional efforts to remove guns from the streets of our community are a positive step forward,” said Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme. “This program is a part of the department’s comprehensive, multipronged approach to reduce gun violence.  Anytime you remove unwanted guns from the community, you have the potential to save lives.”      

“Last week officials from the Mayor’s office, the WPD, and the Worcester Division of Public Health attended Mayor Walsh’s Regional Gun Summit in Boston and had many productive discussions about strategies to reduce gun violence in our community,” said Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr. “One of those discussions surrounded the dangers of real-looking replica guns, which as we’ve seen in other cities can lead to needless violence. As a result, we’ll be including replica guns in this year’s buyback program. We will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of a healthier, safer community.”

The yearly Goods for Guns program in Worcester is sponsored by both UMass Memorial Hospital and Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.’s office.  “We use funds from civil forfeitures and drug dealer convictions to fund this program,” said DA Early.  “One less unsecured gun in a home benefits us all. It removes the possibility of the theft of that gun and the use of it in a crime or accident in the household.”

“Hospital emergency rooms across this country have seen all too often the damage gun violence can do to individuals, their families, and their communities,” said Eric W. Dickson, MD, president and CEO, UMass Memorial Health Care. “The money and resources spent to support a gun buyback program is much more preferable to the costs of treating theses victims and, most importantly, the cost in human lives lost due to gunshot wounds.  I’m proud UMass Memorial, under the leadership and tireless efforts of Dr. Michael Hirsh, continues to play a major role in this program.”

The Goods for Guns program has been a gun buyback program for the last fourteen years in Worcester, exchanging firearms for gift cards. 

Police departments in Worcester, Millbury, Grafton, Leicester, Southbridge, Oxford, Sturbridge, Northbridge, and Webster will exchange guns for gift cards of varying amounts; ($25 rifle, $50 pistol, $75 semiautomatic weapon of any kind). 

Residents of any city or town may drop off their weapons anonymously, in exchange for gift cards.  Gun owners are further welcomed to pick up a trigger lock free of charge from the police stations listed above. 

The 2014 Good for Guns program produced almost 150 firearms in one day as well as 18 lbs of TNT that was being improperly stored in Leicester.  Since the inception of the Goods for Guns program, over 2500 guns have been returned to law enforcement officials in Central Massachusetts. 

Using FBI data and media reports, Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization dedicated to reducing gun violence in America, developed an analysis of mass shootings that took place between January 2009 and July 2015. The analysis found that there have been at least 133 mass shootings in the nearly seven-year period.

InCity Voices

Statement by Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty on recent proposals to increase the presence of outside law enforcement agencies in Worcester

I have full confidence in [Worcester Police] Chief [Gary] Gemme and the Police Officers of Worcester.

The Worcester Police know our community and our neighborhoods.

We have a great community policing  program, as well as the Police Summer Impact Unit.

Law Enforcement on all levels are already working together to solve the problem of violence in our community.  They are working under the leadership of Police Chief Gary Gemme.

But when guns are easy to obtain, you end up with guns in the wrong hands. Unfortunately, right now, we have gang members with small minds carrying big guns.

I am disappointed in some of my [city] council colleagues who try to have it both ways:

You can’t vote against funding for the police and then claim that they don’t have enough money.

You can’t call for level-funding the budget and then say we don’t have enough cops.

You can’t file orders one day supporting the police and then show a total lack of respect for their professionalism the next.

I am asking my colleagues to stand with me in my support of the Worcester Police Department.  We need everyone in this fight.  We need the Worcester Police, we need neighborhood crime watch groups and we need community groups, all who know the neighborhoods of Worcester.