The mayor of this largely white, historically working-class Boston suburb is promising not to remove a Black Lives Matter banner from City Hall despite complaints from police officers in the state.
Mayor Joe Curtatone, a white Democrat, said yesterday it's "OK to disagree" and the only way to resolve the impasse is through an "open dialogue" about race.
"That sign is not coming down," he insisted while standing in front of City Hall flanked by the police chief and two deputy chiefs.
The Somerville Police Employees Association and other police unions said they'd peacefully rally last evening outside City Hall, where the sign has hung for nearly a year, to demand Curtatone remove it.
The police union's president, Michael McGrath, said his officers support the "core goal" of the Black Lives Matter movement but believe the banner sends an "exclusionary message" and is disrespectful to officers.
"In the face of the continuing assassination of innocent police officers across the country ... It is irresponsible of the city to publicly declare support for the lives of one sector of our population to the exclusion of others," McGrath said in a statement this week.
Curtatone, the son of Italian immigrants and the mayor since 2004, has argued that standing up for minority residents and supporting police officers aren't "competing interests."
He noted the city has also hung a banner over police headquarters honoring the officers slain in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
"Both of those banners are hanging for the same reason: Too many people have died in a cycle of violence that needs to be stopped," he said in a statement.
When asked yesterday whether he thought it was appropriate to place the Black Lives Matter banner on a government building, he replied: "No one can sit out this conversation. Where this is happening is in cities. This is the grassroots level."
Curtatone hung the 4-foot-by-12-foot banner over City Hall's main entrance in August 2015 at the request of a local Black Lives Matter chapter. At the time, he said it was meant to recognize that "structural racism" exists in society and stressed it was not a criticism of his police department.
The police banner hangs over the police headquarters entrance and says, "In honor and remembrance," with an image of the Dallas Police Department badge and a black band across it.
