Worcester NAACP Advocates for a civilian review board

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July 20, 2026

Community Groups Challenge City Manager’s Recommendation to City Council, Demand Police Civilian Review Board

Worcester NAACP, Black Families Together, Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts, Progressive Worcester, The Village Worcester, SURJ Worcester, Her Way Home, Massachusetts Organization of African Descendants, Safe Exit Initiative, Worcester Interfaith, Friends of Worcester, and two former Worcester Human Rights Commissioners have released a statement challenging the evidentiary basis for the City Manager’s recommendation to the City Council that a civilian review board not be adopted to examine police accountability. The groups argue that the findings ignore a comprehensive investigation from the Department of Justice citing patterns of serious crimes and civil rights abuses in the Worcester Police Department and an independent review of those findings calling for a civilian review board.

The above groups held a press conference in front of Worcester City Hall. This is the full statement:

July 20, 2026

We the undersigned, representing neighborhoods and communities across Worcester, stand in solidarity with the Worcester NAACP and Black Families Together and join their call for a civilian review board with subpoena powers to hold the Worcester Police Department accountable.

On Friday July 17, 2026, City Manager Batista issued recommendations to the City Council, including a recommendation that the city not create a civilian review board on police accountability. This recommendation completely ignores years of civilian complaints against the police, lawsuits against the police for misconduct which have cost millions of taxpayer dollars to settle, a years-long investigation of WPD by the Department of Justice, and an independent review of those DOJ findings by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, which the City Manager commissioned himself.

We call on the City Council to reject the City Manager’s recommendation and create a Civilian Review Board with full subpoena powers.

In 2020, in the wake of the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the NAACP and Black Families Together called for a civilian review board to evaluate civilian complaints against the WPD. In 2021, former City Manager Ed Augustus acknowledged structural racism in Worcester as a public health crisis, and outlined several corrective actions to be taken via executive order. One of these, a racial equity audit completed in 2024 under the present city manager, found that Black and Latino residents were respectively 2.17 and 1.84 times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts, and that those same populations were grossly underrepresented among Worcester Police Officers.

Also in 2020, a public records request revealed that the City of Worcester was found to have paid $4 Million to settle 27 police lawsuits from 2010-2020. In the six years since then, the city has paid out over $2.6 million in additional taxpayer funds to settle lawsuits due to police misconduct.

On December 9, 2024, the Department of Justice released a report indicating that the

Worcester Police Department (WPD) lacks adequate internal mechanisms for handling

misconduct. In that report, the DOJ found that the WPD had engaged in a years long pattern of civil rights violations, including but not limited to excessive force, “serious concerns” of sexual assault of women arrested in custody, and other “outrageous” abuses of power. In response, the Worcester City Manager engaged the Worcester Regional Research Bureau (WRRB) to conduct research on policing, specifically regarding civilian review boards. On October 14, 2025, the WRRB presented a report advocating for a civilian review board—an essential step toward ensuring accountability and transparency. And this year, the City’s Human Rights Commission - an independent body advising the manager on issues of human rights- voted in support of a resolution that Worcester City Council pursue the CRB with full subpoena powers.

Our demand for a civilian review board is based on years of evidence, the recommendations of the Department of Justice, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, the Worcester Human Rights Commission, and the millions of dollars in taxpayer money lost because Worcester’s Police Department has repeatedly proven incapable of holding itself accountable. Worcester is also an outlier among cities in the Northeast- Boston, Cambridge, Hartford, Providence, New Haven, and Springfield all have civilian review boards, and it’s time for Worcester to catch up. The only other avenue to accountability- the statewide POST commission- is understaffed and can only investigate 3-4% of the complaints they receive. And if WPD was capable of holding itself accountable, it would have done so- millions of lost tax dollars and several investigations prove that Worcester’s Police Department needs independent oversight to be truly accountable to the people they are supposed to serve.

The City Manager’s decision ignores the mountains of advice and evidence as well as the lived reality of his constituents. His suggestion- that body-worn cameras and a diversity officer can solve the deeply rooted problems identified by the DOJ and the report he himself commissioned- is void of all reason. By ignoring the evidence and refusing to recommend a civilian review board, the city manager has effectively said that he is willing to shield a small minority of bad cops from accountability. In doing so, he has made a clear choice to perpetuate and exacerbate the growing mistrust between the community and

the majority of Worcester police who wear the badge with honor and deserve our trust. The misdeeds of a handful of officers should not taint the honorable service of the majority, but preventing a few bad apples from real accountability does just that. We need real police accountability in Worcester. We continue to demand a civilian review board with subpoena powers, so that bad cops can be held accountable for violating the rights of Worcester residents, so that good cops can do the job we entrust them to do, and so that the community knows their trust is being placed in officers who understand and uphold their duty to the people.

Signed,

NAACP Worcester Branch

The Village Worcester

Black Families Together

Neighbor to Neighbor MA

Progressive Worcester

Her Way Home

Massachusetts Organization of African Descendants

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Worcester

Safe Exit Initiative

Worcester Interfaith

Friends of Worcester