A racially diverse group of 100 Boston police officers assigned to wear body cameras in a pilot program come from districts across the city, with some from the city’s high-crime neighborhoods, areas heavily populated by students, and districts trafficked by tourists.
The officers — who are scheduled to begin training Wednesday — were selected by Anthony Braga, director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University and a Police Department consultant. He and his team of researchers used neighborhood crime and activity data and a random selection process, said department spokesman Lieutenant Detective Michael McCarthy.
McCarthy compared the process to a lottery, and said it “allowed for all officers from these districts/shifts to have an equal opportunity of selection.”
Advertisement
But a civil rights activist expressed concern that no officers who work in parts of the city with Latino immigrants were chosen, while other advocates wondered why so many officers of color were selected.
Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans announced last week that because there were no volunteers, officers would be chosen to participate in the department’s six-month test of body cameras. The initiative had been held up for months by union negotiations and a lack of volunteers. The pilot program will start in September.
The selected officers come from five police districts: B-2 in Roxbury; B-3 in Mattapan and North Dorchester; D-4 which covers Back Bay, Fenway, and the South End; D-14, which includes Allston and Brighton; and E-18 in Hyde Park. Officers in the department’s Youth Violence Strike Force will also wear cameras.
Fifty-five percent of the officers tapped to participate are white, 29 percent are black, 13 percent are Hispanic, and 3 percent are Asian, according to data provided by the department. Eighty-seven percent are men.
Twenty-five additional officers were selected as alternates. They will join the other officers for two-day training sessions starting next week, but they will not be equipped with the cameras, McCarthy said.
Advertisement
Advocates had mixed reactions about the choice of officers who will be wearing the cameras and the neighborhoods where they will be working.
Segun Idowu, co-organizer of the Boston Police Camera Action Team community group that advocated for the devices, lauded the choice of neighborhoods. “It’s a healthy makeup of the city,” Idowu said.
Idowu also applauded the city for working with Braga, who will study the success of the program before the department decides whether to make the cameras permanent.
Because participation in the program is mandatory for the selected officers, Idowu said city officials should outline disciplinary actions for those who refuse to turn on the devices.
Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, said he was disappointed to learn the program did not include officers working in Latino immigrant communities such as East Boston.
“A lot of the needs of Latino immigrant populations have been unmet,” Espinoza-Madrigal said. “The [police-community] interactions there should also be subject to public scrutiny by body cameras.”
He said body cameras worn by police officers there would help show whether there is “a positive and constructive experience” between police and members of the community, “and more importantly, to make sure that there is no implicit biases or cultural competency barriers that may influence the interaction between Latinos and police officers in East Boston.”
Advertisement
Espinoza-Madrigal and Carl Williams, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts, raised concerns about the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in the pilot program compared with the number of minority officers on the force.
According to a 2015 Police Department Operational Audit, 66 percent of the officers on the force are white, 23 percent are black, 9 percent are Hispanic, and 2 percent are Asian.
Speaking during the monthly “Ask the Commissioner” segment on WGBH-FM’s Boston Public Radio, Evans said he expects to be challenged by the department’s unions.
Representatives of the department’s unions have not commented.
By the numbers
■55 percent of the officers chosen to participate are white
■29 percent are black
■13 percent are Hispanic
■3 percent are Asian
■87 percent are men
Jan Ransom can be reached at jan.ransom@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jan_Ransom.