"Police to lay off civilian liaisons; They are a link to city’s street life" by Meghan E. Irons and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | February 9, 2010
The Boston Police Department, even as it struggles to maintain fragile relationships with the city’s high-crime neighborhoods, plans to lay off civilian community liaisons who have played key roles bridging the divide between law enforcement and life on the streets.
Nine of 10 civilian liaison positions will be eliminated in September when funding for the jobs runs out.
The only thing funding never runs out on around here seems to be banks, wars, and corporate coffers.
The loss of the liaisons, some of whom have been in the department more than 15 years, alarmed community leaders who have come to rely on them to help facilitate gang truces, aid domestic abuse victims, and act as go-betweens for immigrants who don’t speak English or are afraid to approach police.
But if you say illegals bring crime with them the Zionist AmeriKan MSM tars you as a racist.
Makes sense when you consider who is at the bottom of organized crime (and here is a hint, readers; it ain't the Godfather promoted by the Zionist press. Well, it is, but it is a different type of grandfather now. Well, not really, but....).
“This will be a big loss, especially for our youths, because they need someone on the police side who can speak their language and who understands their culture,’’ said Phuongdai Nguyen, deputy director of the Vietnamese American Civic Association in Dorchester. “This will be a problem for us.’’
The Police Department lost all of its funding for the Same Cop Same Neighborhood grant, which came from the state Executive Office of Public Safety and funded the community service liaisons’ $45,000-$64,000 annual salaries for about the last five years.
Ever notice banks and wars never run out of funding?
And I can see why some of them turned to side deals. Not that much $$$ for living out there.
The department employs three liaisons in Dorchester and one each in Mattapan, Hyde Park, downtown, Brighton, South Boston, and West Roxbury. Another works for the department’s Neighborhood Crime Watch. Several of them are immigrants who can speak the languages of those in the neighborhood.
Glad it is your city and not mine.
Federal stimulus funding provided enough money to keep the liaisons in the department until September, said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the department. Commissioner Edward F. Davis hopes to find another source of funding to keep the liaisons, she said.
Counted as "created" jobs!
“Unfortunately, we’re in very tough financial times right now, and these are very difficult decisions that are being made,’’ Driscoll said....
“There is a big trust barrier here, so the liaisons are themselves a bridge between community members who don’t trust the uniform but who may see a need to connect with the department,’’ said Emmanuel Tikili, a program manager at the Boston TenPoint Coalition who works closely with police liaisons in Grove Hall.
Yer kidding? Between America and it's kops that only "serve and protect?"
The Rev. Eugene Rivers, an outspoken Dorchester pastor, said the liaisons attend weekly task force meetings with clergy and street workers in the Four Corners section of Dorchester. Often they review crime statistics in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan and help develop strategies to combat crime. The liaisons team with clergy street workers to visit at-risk youths at home, work with them to get jobs, or get them back to school to get their GED.
Not that I want to knock the programs, but one can also look at this as cops co-opting the clergy.
Slashing the positions would be “an unfortunate mistake,’’ Rivers said.
“To cut these positions would be to set back relations, particularly in the black community,’’ he said. “This would be the worst time for these cuts.’’
Is there ever a good time?
--more--"
Maybe the program should be disbanded.
Three Boston street workers hired to steer young people away from lives of crime have themselves been arrested since June, challenging ambitious efforts by the city and the Boston Foundation to guide gang members toward rehabilitation.
You know, when they see the state and federal government acting like gangsters, wtf are they supposed to think?
Last month, a 44-year-old street worker funded by the Boston Foundation was arrested in Newton and charged with heroin possession and passing about $1,500 in counterfeit bills to buy goods at T.J. Maxx.
Oh, that's JUST GREAT!!
Two months earlier, another worker hired through the foundation was charged with assaulting a police officer on a Dorchester street. And last June, a street worker hired by the city was charged with possession of a pound of marijuana with intent to distribute the drug.
Yeah, usually turns out that the COPS are the MOST CORRUPT because THEY are ON the INSIDE and ABOVE SUSPICIONS -- unlike you or I, innocent American citizens and Bay State residents.
Community and religious leaders say the recent spate of problems reflects the challenges of a job that demands civilians go unarmed into the streets and interact with gang members who create much of the havoc in some city neighborhoods.
Just say no, copper!
Many of the street workers have criminal backgrounds, which can give them credibility with gang members, but also means they could be tempted to return to lives of crime....
With cop cover!!!!
Time to DECRIMINALIZE, don'cha think?
