Latest news with #RuthzeeLouijeune
CBS News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Boston Mayor Wu tells Trump border czar Tom Homan to "take a time out"
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu went on offense against the Trump administration on Tuesday, declaring she signed an executive order asking ICE to provide information on who they are arresting in the city. "My advice to Tom Homan and ICE is to take a time out," Wu said during a press conference, "Reassess what you are doing and how you are doing it. A little friendly advice from the safest major city in the country." Wu told reporters she has no idea how many Boston residents have been detained by ICE since President Trump took office. She said her executive order declares that the city will seek that data through freedom of information requests. "We don't have any information at all and we have asked," Wu said. During the press conference, city councilors also declared that Boston is taking active steps to help immigrants. "We were here signing the amended budget where the mayor invested and then the city council invested on top of that for legal assistance for our immigrant communities," said City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune. Volunteers alerting residents about ICE activity Councilor Enrique Pepen said that he has helped to organize a volunteer group that alerts residents to ICE activities. "They got word that there were ICE agents out and they deployed 20 residents to go to every single small business to let them know that ICE agents were in the neighborhood," Pepen said. On Tuesday, President Trump told reporters that his administration will continue immigrant removal efforts around the country. "When they opened up our borders for the whole world to come in, we're going to get them out. We're getting them out," Mr. Trump said. WBZ reached out to ICE for this story but did not receive a comment.
Boston Globe
16-04-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Boston police had 70 Tasers. The department is spending millions on 1,500 more.
'The successful use and de-escalation by those units, particularly when responding to mental health related calls, highlighted the need to provide access to these tools to our front line officers,' Cox said. 'We want to equip our personnel with additional options to handle the many complex situations they face on a daily basis without causing serious harm whenever possible.' Advertisement The Boston Police Department did not respond to specific questions about the budget implications of the contract. Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and Councilor Henry Santana, chair of the city's public safety committee, were asked about the cost and use of the equipment, but their offices said they were not available for comment due to ongoing budget hearings. Advertisement Of the 1,500, the department has already acquired 260 new Tasers, with the eventual goal of equipping all its officers. The rollout places Boston in step with most municipal police departments, which have already made Tasers part of their standard kit, said Bruce Champagne, a Utah-based retired police officer and use of force instructor who works as an expert witness on police procedure in federal court cases. 'They've only grown more accepted as time goes on,' Champagne said. 'Boston is maybe a little behind the national trend.' One factor driving Taser adoption is their perceived utility for officers confronting people in emotional crisis — a scenario that all too often ends in tragedy. In Massachusetts, more than half the people shot by police since 2016 were mentally ill, a Officers have grown to value Tasers as a useful tool for resolving those kind of unpredictable encounters, said Michael Bradley, executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association. 'They can be particularly effective in reducing injuries to both officers and subjects, especially in cases where physical confrontation might otherwise escalate,' he said. Axon has long touted studies that have found Tasers But civil liberties groups and advocates for the mentally ill have questioned those claims, particularly for people who are already in poor health. In 2019, Advertisement 'We know that when mental health is managed through policing, sometimes it can be very dangerous and lead to escalation,' said Ivy Moody, a staff attorney at the Quincy-based Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee. 'A Taser isn't a gun, but it can be a lethal weapon when it comes to folks who have comorbidities.' Carlton Williams, a Boston-based attorney and police reform advocate, said he is skeptical that equipping officers with Tasers will make police encounters safer for mentally ill people. He called the suggestion that Tasers are safer 'a great theory in the abstract.' The more officers that have Tasers, he argued, the more that will use them. 'In practice, in almost every jurisdiction people have looked into, people use it as an increase in force,' Williams said. 'Are people going to step down force they would have used, or are they going to step it up?' In 2021, Boston police issued The agency's Advertisement Overall, Taser use by police in Massachusetts, including warnings and actual stuns, declined each year from 2018 through 2021, according to The Boston Police Department is purchasing the Taser 10, Axon's latest version of the stun gun. The new model, released in 2023, features an increased range of 45 feet, a 10-probe magazine, and digital tracking of deployments, according to the company. Tasers have become ubiquitous in police arsenals since 1999, when Axon, then named Taser International, introduced its first advanced model — capable of shocking a target's muscles into immobility. 'Most major police departments in the country have adopted Tasers,' said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. At the turn of the millennium, 500 law enforcement agencies used Tasers, The Boston police have used Tasers in two incidents this year, Detective Sergeant John Boyle wrote in an email. On the evening of March 28, officers responded to a report of a man acting erratically on a corner across the street from the Forest Hills bus terminal. He did not appear to be armed, but he shoved officers who approached and said they'd have to 'shoot him' to get him to move, according to a police report. Advertisement Four officers stood around him, one carrying an application to hospitalize the man against his will. An ambulance was waiting, but the man wouldn't get in. After 15 minutes of de-escalation attempts, one officer unholstered his Taser, gave two warnings and fired, according to the police. The incident is being investigated by the police Firearm Discharge Investigation Team, in accordance with department policy. Another incident took place on April 8, when officers attempted to break up a fight between two dogs in Hyde Park. Minnie, a pit bull, had her jaws around the neck of Lolita, a French pocket bully; an officer tased Minnie 'to save Lolita's life,' according to the police report. Both dogs were taken to an animal hospital. Dan Glaun can be reached at
Boston Globe
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Boston's Haitian community unsettled as Trump cancels TPS
Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, the first Haitian-American elected to the council, called the news 'devastating' for Boston's large Haitian community. Advertisement 'This is going to affect so many of our residents who are here, working and contributing to our economy, who are law-abiding residents, who fled from fear and persecution, and who have made a home here in Boston,' Louijeune said. She said President Trump continues to push a false idea that immigrants are criminals. 'They are our bus drivers bringing our kids to school,' she said. 'They are starting companies, starting businesses, working in our cafeterias, they're everywhere.' According to US In a statement announcing the change, the Department of Homeland Security said the TPS system had been exploited since it first began to include Haiti in 2010, following a devastating earthquake in the country. 'The data shows each extension of the country's TPS designation allowed more Haitian nationals, even those who entered the U.S. illegally, to qualify for legal protected status,' DHS said in the statement. Homeland Security estimated 57,000 Haitians were eligible for TPS protections in 2011, but by last July, that number had climbed to 520,694. Trump sought to make a similar move in 2017 during his first term, but was the subject of lengthy court challenges. After four years out of power, Trump ran for president last year on promises of mass deportations. Though those have not materialized in the first month he's been in office, Trump has taken multiple steps like the changes to TPS to make the government's immigration apparatus to be more restrictive. Former president Joe Biden's administration had extended TPS, which has to be renewed periodically to remain in effect, into 2026 for Haitians. Advertisement Before President Trump took office last month, Earlier this month, the administration made Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of the national immigrant-advocacy group America's Voice, called the move cruel and said it's in the best interest of the US to keep TPS in place. 'Unfortunately, deporting Haitians, who have been here with lawful and legal status, back to a nation still in the throes of crisis will only fuel more chaos in U.S. communities and in Haiti alike,' she said in a statement. The Associated Press contributed. Sean Cotter can be reached at
