Learn: Wu explains why she modified course on police grants

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Metropolis Council is anticipated to vote on the grants Wednesday, which might help the Boston Regional Intelligence Middle.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has caught criticism in latest weeks for seemingly reversing course on grant funding that will help the Boston Regional Intelligence Middle. Often called BRIC, the middle is a knowledge evaluation operation that homes, amongst different issues, Boston’s gang database of suspected gang members.

Critics of the database have lengthy stated that it’s racially discriminatory and allows civil liberties violations. Wu herself voted in opposition to funding for the BRIC in 2021 as a Metropolis Council member.

The grants had been the topic of a heated Metropolis Council listening to Friday, the place Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox and others defined how the funds can be used and advocated for his or her necessity.

The 4 grants, which complete $3.4 million, are set to be taken up throughout Wednesday’s Metropolis Council assembly. Councilor Michael Flaherty, chair of the Committee on Public Security and Felony Justice, advisable that the grants needs to be permitted after Friday’s listening to, however stiff resistance is prone to stay.

On Wednesday morning, Wu despatched a letter to Metropolis Council explaining her reasoning for supporting the grants when she didn’t accomplish that previously.

“I didn’t need individuals simply to suppose, ‘Oh nicely, she stated some stuff as a councilor and now she’s mayor and he or she has to say another stuff,’” Wu informed host Jimmy Hills on his program “Java with Jimmy” Wednesday morning. “We had not put ahead these grants from once I turned mayor all the best way to September of 2023. There was a cause for that. I wished to be completely certain that any funding we’re utilizing is definitely going to go to assist and make a distinction.”

Learn the complete letter beneath:

BRIC letter by Ross Cristantiello on Scribd