BOSTON (WHDH) - Massachusetts’ elected officials of color gathered at the State House on Tuesday, where they condemned police brutality and called for more accountability among law enforcement officers after holding a powerful moment of silence in honor of George Floyd. It lasted eight minutes and 46 seconds.
U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, and Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera were among the political leaders who gathered at Boston’s African Meeting House before marching to Beacon Hill.
Pressley told reporters during a news conference outside the State House that she’s working on a resolution to condemn and combat police brutality.
“What you see happening throughout this nation is unrest, and it will persist for as long as there is unrest,” Pressley said. “On full display, what you’re seeing, is the pain of black folks that has been delegitimized for far too long.”
Pressley added, “For too long black and brown bodies have been profiled, surveyed, policed, lynched, choked, brutalized, and murdered at the hands of police officers. We cannot allow these fatal injustices to go unchecked any longer.”
Her resolution would hold individual police officers and departments accountable, call on the Department of Justice to reassert its authority to investigate racial profiling and police brutality, in addition to creating an all-civilian review board to investigate police misconduct.
Officials at the state level are working to commission to study how institutional racism has created a culture of structural racial inequality and the adoption of limits on police use of force.
Prior to speaking, officials held a moment of silence, which lasted the same length of time ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is said to have had his knee on Floyd’s neck.
An autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family found that he died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression.
Chauvin has since been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter and is in custody in state prison.
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