Boston continues to fail to earn the Black community’s trust

On Dec. 20, 2023, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu held a press conference to formally apologize for the racism that informed how in 1989 the mayor’s office, city officials, and the Boston Police Department engaged the Black community after Charles Stuart, a white man, falsely accused a Black man of shooting his pregnant wife, Carol Stuart, to death. The symbolic significance of Wu’s formal apology cannot be overstated. Wu was joined by police Commissioner Michael Cox, who followed up his own formal apology with an assertion about how different the BPD is now in its treatment of Black Bostonians. The force, Cox suggested, has evolved. But has it? Nearly 10 years ago — years before George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers and before Boston adopted “sweeping” reforms recommended by the Boston Police Reform Task Force — the ACLU of Massachusetts released a report that summarized findings from analysis of BPD’s own field operations data. The report revealed that the BPD targeted the city’s Black communities with racially discriminatory stop and frisk practices. My research team continues to find major racial disparities in Boston residents’ reports of contact with law enforcement.