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Police advisory board in Pittsfield nearly wiped out after all but one member resign

An entrance to the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, police station.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPM
An entrance to the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, police station.

Five of of the six members of a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, police advisory and review board have resigned after learning they weren't allowed to review a police report investigating a shooting by an officer.

Ellen Maxon, who resigned as board chair, said members can't review the police investigation of the shooting death of 22-year-old Miguel Estrella because the report is not the result of a citizen's complaint, something the ordinance governing the board requires. That was the "tipping point" that led to the resignations, according to Maxon.

Maxon would like the board to do even more than review an investigation — such as provide input before police make a determination.

"That doesn't mean decide whether an officer should get fired. It doesn't mean to decide what the discipline is. But it's just to put another set of eyes on a situation," she said.

The board could file a public records request or have a citizen file a complaint in order to review the report, but Maxon said board members felt they shouldn't have to jump through hoops.

Maxon said the board was reconstituted after the 2017 police shooting of Daniel Gillis.

The board is not set up to allow "us a good look at what maybe could have been done differently," Maxon said. "The whole system of this review board doesn't really open itself up to real change."

Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer did not respond to a request for an interview. But Tyer told The Berkshire Eagle that limits on the board's authority should not have been a surprise, because she said board members received training on the ordinance.

The only board member who didn't resign is Lt. Col. Thomas Grady with the Berkshire County sheriff's office.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
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