The Worcester Police Department came out with a press release on 06/02/2020 stating that the peaceful protest the night before held by City Councilman Khristian King⁠—who supports police expansion around Worcester⁠—"had concluded around 8:30pm." Around 9:45pm, they claimed that a separate crowd appeared, and they looked "unruly". What happened between then, in that hour and fifteen minutes? Freelance journalist Sam Bishop, along with many others, had documented just that and more. Mr. Bishop remembers no separation in peaceful protestors and violent ones; they were the same people. The first arrest made was a woman who wasn't even near most of the protestors. When the head of the protestors asked for officers to kneel for George Floyd one more time, most of them did not and pushed the protestors back instead. This violent act does not coincide with the performance of taking a knee to show solidarity earlier that day.

The Worcester Police Department is a part of a corrupt and unjust system, and the people of Worcester will not stand for it. WPD has a history of misusing their tax dollars, yet the budget for public safety went up almost $4 million from 2019. Public safety is being overfunded; the budget is much higher in relation to other cities with the same crime rates. The first step in making change in Worcester is defunding the police department and putting the money towards more important areas. Cops cannot police everything, and even they have made complaints about it; reform is not enough anymore. We cannot let what happened in Minneapolis and other cities happen in Worcester before changes are made.

Although we must defund them as soon as possible, we first have to look at the fact that Mayor Joe Petty, City Manager Ed Augustus, and Chief of Police Steven Sargent, have not even addressed the problem of police brutality in Worcester. They focused on how the protest on June 1st ended and did not take a second look at how it started. This petition calls for an immediate statement from Worcester's city officials regarding the victims that were harmed from an abuse of power as well as holding WPD accountable, and making change to the 2021 fiscal budget. This, is our call to action.