Nightmare on Eureka Street
Just dudes doing their jobs (Oppressing women of color)
I was present at what is now becoming a nationally discussed event, that captures a lot of problems with not just my local police department, but everywhere else right now. I have SO much more to say, but I think it’s important that since WPD is beginning to try and shift the narrative, people who were there need begin to share what they saw and experienced.
I’m still procesing it, but have more documentation than most, so am beginning the societal process of showing the truth over what DHS, the Worcester Police Unions, and the Worcester City Manager are trying to tell people.
Sorry I haven’t written as much recently. Been moving my website around, since the state couldn’t verify Davidfuckingwebb.com for journalism due to their web browsing content filter (oh, I guess that makes sense), and I’ve been incredibly busy. Content management and editing my own writing takes up a lot of time and energy and I can’t be places and do that at once. In a perfect world, I’d have a secretary, executive assistant and media team (and law firm on retainer, because FUCK) but I'm not exactly there yet.
People keep asking how they can help me? I’m broke, and could use revenue.
I currently have 50 subscribers here, 3 paid. If I get those numbers up to 100 and 10 by the end of next week, I promise to publish about what I’m up to and what I’m seeing in my city at least once a week. Probably some societal thoughts here and there too. Maybe tech guides.
If I get those numbers to 200 and 20 by the end of the week, I’ll also resume my Podcast (What Could Possibly Go Wrong) and if I somehow get a ton more, I’m open to committing to more.
Community - if you want to support me this way - let me know.
I’m also available for hourly or project based consultations if you want to put my brain to use for your goals - just please know that for the forseeable future I will probably be 5-15 minutes late to meetings and am not accepting responsibility for note taking. If seriously interest, Email me at d@vidwebb.com with subject “Paid Consultation” and we can schedule a call to figure out what you’re looking to do and how I can help.
If you want to help this cause, you can take action with LUCE, an incredible local network offering actual on the ground help in sitatuations like this.
This past Thursday, I went to Eureka street in Worcester to document federal agents who had surrounded three women with an infant in a car. A few other witnesses were already there, and neighbors were paying attention. Noone was under arrest. There were five federal agents with vests, and one in plain clothes.
They wern’t allowing anyone to talk to her, a man without any badge or vest but clear gun and handcuff bulge under his Yosemite National Park tshirt ordered me to stay back, pointed out an “imaginary line”, he actually called it that.
It wasn’t exactly a relaxed moment, but it wasn’t tense. It was more than respectful. In the moment all my attention was on the armed people but going back through the footage was heartbreaking even before they got violent.
They made councilor Haxjiaj stand back to talk with the person, and seemed to start to become less comfortable once we began using a phone to translate - their goal at this point appeared be not allowing anyone to support the people they had trapped.
Eventually we realized that these women had been there longer than any of us and probably had to pee, and then subsequently realized the baby certainlty needed a diaper changer. I heard someone saying to one of them “You may not ever think of this, but one of these women gave birth a few months ago…”. In my opinion, that was the moment when everything shifted from a bunch of people observing law enforcment activity to a bunch of people observing an injustice and tensions heightened.
Councilor Haxjiaj asked something none of us had thought to yet - are these people under arrest and when ICE refused to answer, the crowd that had gathered at that point began to walk away with them.
Seeing they were about to lose their “target” (confirmed their use of language multiple times from multiple audio sources), that appeared to be when ICE decided to arrest the woman. There was a clear cut nod from the lead agent to another, who then pulled out his handcuffs and started twisting peoples arms away. Rewatching the video, even in slow motion without sound is horrifying and takes away my apetite for the day. You see his entire body turn and can only imagine what the elbows of the person whose arm he’s holding feel like in that moment.
As he rushed over, the lead agent ran into my outstretched arm holding one of my cameras, and then said “get him, he just hit me” to one of his agents who turned around and may have been about to actually arrest me but stopped either because I shouted “No I didn’t he ran into me it’s on video and everyone saw it” or more likely because I’m a six foot tall white dude and he was there to grab five foot tall brown women. I later saw from someone else’s video that the lead agent was looking down at his phone as he went by me, his forhead hit my hand and then he instinctively reached up and swatted at my arm - the fucker actually hit me, and then had the nerve to say I hit him. I think he probably believed it.
Because people had moved a bit down the street from where this started, and there had been chants of "Show us a warrant" neighbors had been coming out of their houses to see what was going on. Elected officials and reporters were already there, and please keep in mind - his crowd was upset because of what they had just witnessed. Federal agents had their hands on women for the past few minutes and this crowd consisted largely of not just mothers, but grandmothers. Everyone was recording, except ICE even though two of them had bodyworn cameras.
Worcester Police Department Officer Hanlon was the first local law enforcement on scene and he immediately without questions or hesitation ignored Councilor Haxhiaj's pleas to protect our community and instead assisted ICE in a warrantless arrest, before other officers showed up, but right after a half dozen more federal agents had arrived.
As more and more officers arrived, Officer Mike Higgins move his cruiser to the middle of the street, blocking everyone in, and then they threatened over it's loudspeaker that they would arrest people for unlawful assembly. Chants turned to “Don’t take the mother” as WPD attempted to move people out of the street so the unmarked federal vehicle could leave.
A few minutes later, ICE grabbed that womans minor daughter and handed her off to two WPD officers who pushed her face into the ground when arresting her, as captured excellently by Telemundo. Officer Atchue exited that grapple to shove and arrest Ash Spring with Officer Boucher who was "very very rough" with them.
Lieutenant Bossolt lied to reporters, saying that WPD responded to a crowd in the street, which was directly contradicted by Police Union President Tom Duffy's statement to the press as well as the police scanner. He made it quite clear that he was far more concerned with “fifty people in the street” than one unlawful arrest.
Deputy Chief Davenport arrived at the very end, got a status update from him, and then left. Bossolt told Davenport that he and I had arrived at the same time, which is either inaccurate or means WPD was on scene almost a half hour prior to ICE initiating the arrest.
Note: This was my second interaction with him that day, the earlier one was an unlawful eviction, where he effectively took the exact same position that people’s rights can be argued in court, and are not the concern of the Worcester Police Department. That entire situation should be it’s own post, but you can watch me delay an eviction, even though a judge had approved it the day prior in my conversation with LT Bossolt here.
We haven't heard from Chief Saucier yet, or the chair of the safety committee Kate Toomey.
Police Commissioner/City Manager Eric Batista issued a statement that night, blatantly lying about the series of events.
I wish all of these Worcester Police Department (Official) officials and their supporters a bad mothers day.
