Suffolk County DA talks criminal justice reform to Falmouth Democrats

By Jessica Hill
Posted Jul 16, 2020

Rachael Rollins says majority of police officers are honorable.

FALMOUTH — Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins spoke about racial justice and police reform via Zoom video conferencing during a Falmouth Democratic Town Committee meeting Wednesday night.

Elected officials were also present in the meeting, including Falmouth Select Board member Samuel Patterson and state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, D-Woods Hole.

Rollins, who was elected in 2018, told an audience of about 50 people about her professional background. She is the first woman to be elected Suffolk County District Attorney and the first woman of color to serve as a district attorney in Massachusetts. She served on the National Labor Relations Board as a field attorney and worked as an assistant United States attorney in Boston.

Rollins discussed current hot topics, such as police violence and gun reform.

She said that overwhelmingly the men and women who wear a badge are honorable, culturally competent, decent and do their jobs well, but people do not often see those stories in the media.

“I believe we need to start being far more vocal about the officers that are doing their job honorably everyday, of which there are many,” Rollins said.

“I respect law enforcement. I also know that certain communities interact with law enforcement differently.”

She spoke of the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the racial tensions they spurred across the country.

“Yes, the police are being called to task right now,” she said, “but in many of those circumstances the DAs have failed the community just as much, if not more, than the police.” 

In the case of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed while jogging in Georgia, three different district attorneys watched the video documenting the murder and all dismissed it, not seeing a crime, she said.

District attorneys are “willfully looking the other way,” Rollins said.

Fernandes commended Rollins’ work as a district attorney, but told the Falmouth Democratic Town Committee that it needs to work to elect people like her on the Cape and Islands.

“We’ve had a lot of protests on the Cape and Islands,” Fernandes said. “We need to take a look at who is representing us within our own criminal justice system.”

Rollins also spoke about the much-discussed concept of “defunding” the police. She said that “defund” is not the verb she would use, but rather “reimagine” or “reallocate.”

For instance, she said, the Boston Police Department has a budget of $414 million, which does not include an additional $60 million for overtime. That is four times larger than the Boston Public Health Commission’s budget, she said.

“I think we’re asking the police to do far too much,” she said. “A lot of the 911 calls are actually about substance use, about mental health, or about food and housing insecurity.”

“I think we can reimagine and reallocate some funding,” she said. Police officers can continue to do what they were trained to do instead of taking on roles of social work and experts in substance use disorder, she said.

She also said that mayors and commissioners responsible for negotiating with police unions are “held to task” and include in their negotiations what the citizens of towns want.

Rollins said now is the time to get involved in local government and politics and to make sure citizens’ voices are heard.

“We’re never going to see something like this again,” Rollins said. “We have COVID-19, which we thought was the worst thing that could ever happen. Then George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, all of this racial tension, hate and murder, all at the hands of law enforcement or their proxy. Now we are seeing that the criminal justice system has to be looked at very closely, and we are reckoning with our past.”