North Andover Police Implementing 8 Can't Wait Reform

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — North Andover's police are implementing the 8 Can't Wait suite of police reforms, the department told the Board of Selectmen at a recent meeting. The department already has seven of the policies designed to reduce police violence in place, and is implementing the eighth: duty to intervene.

The eight policies are:

• Ban chokeholds and strangleholds
• Require de-escalation
• Require warning before shooting
• Exhaust all other means before shooting
• Duty to intervene
• Ban shooting at moving vehicles
• Require use-of-force continuum
• Require comprehensive reporting on use of force

Chief Charles Gray said the department would begin implementing the duty to intervene policy, which Gray said he and Lt. Eric Foulds drafted. Gray spoke to the Selectmen at their June 15 meeting.

Duty to intervene polices require officers to step in when a fellow officer is using excessive force, and to report the incident to supervisors.

The 8 Can't Wait reforms have been criticized by activists as not going far enough — many are calling to defund police departments — and by researchers for not having the empirical basis that the advocates claim. But many cities and police departments have picked them up, including the Boston Police Department.

The presentation to the Board of Selectmen also discussed the town's police budget. The town spends $164 per capita on the police, among the lowest of the town's peer communities. The police budget is $5,400,000, just under 5 percent of the total town budget.

In 2012, before Gray was the chief, North Andover police settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the department, along with the state police and the sheriff's department. The suit related to the 2009 death of a 45-year-old Worcester man at a state police checkpoint in North Andover. North Andover paid $400,000, while the state police and sheriff's department paid $800,000 together.

The full meeting is available here, from North Andover CAM.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.