We’re living in historic times and the best way to understand transformative national, even global events, is to dig deep into history.
The year is 1974 and Warren Briggs, the Lynn police union chapter’s no-nonsense, tough-talking president, is giving the Massachusetts Committee on Criminal Justice an earful about money for social services versus police spending.
At issue is $15 million in federal anti-crime money. That is a lot of money in 1974 dollars and Briggs quickly labeled it “a social grab bag.” In Briggs’ view, the federal money needed to be spent on giving police “the tools to work,” according to a Daily Evening Item report, rather than spending it on social ills.
His statement drew applause from the committee’s audience. But Briggs was outnumbered when judges, pastors, substance abuse prevention representatives and tenant association members told the committee how the federal money could be spent on solving societal problems in Lynn.
Former state Rep. James E. Smith told the committee that agencies working to improve life in Lynn could spend the money on recreational programs; aid to children with disabilities, and improving public housing.
Mary Martin, a tenant representative from the long-gone America Park housing complex described how America Park had become a stolen car dumping ground where packs of dogs roamed freely, frightening and sometimes attacking tenants.
“We need a police and court system which work together and work with the people they serve,” Martin told the committee.
Her suggestion didn’t sit well with Briggs, who declared it was time for America Park tenants “to show some guts” and give police the names of criminals and miscreants running amok in America Park. He also told the committee, according to the Item report, that $25,000 slated to be spent on a police department riot squad had yet to materialize.
It’s easy to overlay Martin and Smith’s appeals and Briggs’ entrenched opposition to social programs on top of today’s protests and public statements coming fast and furious as the fight for racial justice escalates.
For now, everyone sounds like they are on the same side in the racial justice struggle. But will this unity dissolve once the hard discussions about public safety and societal needs begin against the backdrop of racial justice?
Floyd Cully would probably say, “Yes.”
The former Community Minority Cultural Center director also spoke at the 1974 committee hearing and Cully didn’t mince words.
“We have to stop fooling around and find a way for minorities to work as policemen or in positions that deal with the problems that face us.”
He told the committee that one person of color worked for the Lynn police in June, 1974 and no “… person of Spanish origin” had ever been hired.
“The reason for this is simple. No one has ever taken the time or made a concerted effort to correct the situation. There’s nothing on the horizon to indicate any change will be forthcoming,” Cully said.
Those words don’t apply today with social change a force showing no signs of abating. And the Lynn police department looks very different from the way it looked in 1974.
In his parting remarks to the committee, Cully quoted then-Lynn Mayor David Phillips as stating that “the mayor doesn’t really have control of the Police Department.”
“If that’s true,” said Cully, “then somebody else controls the Police Department.”
The control question has been a flash point for mayors over the years with former Mayor Antonio Marino and Chief S. Craft Scribner battling in 1980 over Marino’s decision to appoint a department administrator.
Former Mayor Patrick J. McManus sought to exert his authority over the department 12 years later when he issued department management orders to then-Chief John Hollow.
Marino and McManus ended up in court battles with their respective chiefs. I can’t recall who won the fights, but I can tell you the losers were: Lynn taxpayers who footed the bill for the attorneys hired to drag both disputes from one court to another because city officials were unable or unwilling to forge a way forward.