After activating the state’s National Guard without explanation and deactivating it a few days later, Governor Charlie Baker came under sharp criticism Tuesday by those who viewed the move as an unnecessary — and potentially counterproductive — escalation.
Activists and a Boston city councilor said that Baker’s decision to activate up to 1,000 Guard members to provide “necessary assistance to State and local civilian authorities” had the potential both to stoke tensions and discourage would-be protesters from taking part in peaceful demonstrations.
“He should’ve never done it,” said James Mackey, who organized an event Friday near the State House to bring attention to the social injustices Black people face in Massachusetts. “That doesn’t mean we will be silenced, that doesn’t mean that we won’t show up just because the National Guard shows up. . . . But that’s definitely going to bring some tension, and I don’t think that was a great idea.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia, who said Tuesday that Baker’s decision to ready the Guard following unrest in Oregon and Wisconsin sent a distinct message to protesters.
“There’s already a lot of ’Us versus them’ mentality, and when people don’t feel safe to voice their concerns about the police brutality that’s happening across the country, and you deploy military, you deploy the National Guard, it’s in many ways making people feel that they need to be silent,” she said.
“That may not be the intention . . . but there is this sense of control when you see the National Guard, and there’s a level of fear that people have, and that fear is real.”
Asked about his reasoning at a news conference Tuesday, Baker said the decision stemmed from requests made by “a number of municipal officials” to have assistance available in advance of a number of planned demonstrations.
Toward the end of last week, Baker said, 45 to 50 planned events were posted on a variety of social media sites, some of which featured large numbers of anticipated attendees.
“We heard from a number of municipal officials who asked us if we would have people available to support them, if those events turned out to be bigger than what they would be able to manage on their own,” Baker said.
No issues were reported over the weekend, he said, and the state announced Monday evening that the Guard had been deactivated.
“The great thing about this is everybody came out, they did their thing, their voices were heard, we didn’t hear from any municipal officials, and after we didn’t hear from them, we deactivated,” said Baker, who added that he had received no pressure from federal authorities to activate the Guard.
Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn said he supported Baker’s decision, made amid national protests that have grown increasingly intense in some cities — including the shooting last week of a 39-year-old man in Portland, Ore., and the killing of two protesters in Kenosha, Wis., allegedly at the hands of a 17-year-old.
“I trust Governor Baker to make sound judgments on public safety matters, and I’m confident in the restraint of the National Guard,” said Flynn, a Navy veteran. “I’ve worked with them, I’ve served with them, and I understand the critical role they place in our city, state, and country.”
Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the US Naval War College, said the Guard can also serve a useful role when unrest stems from a distrust in local law enforcement.
“It’s a judgment call,” said Cohn, noting that she was not speaking in her professional capacity. “The governor has to decide whether having the Guard out there will be escalatory, or whether it will actually be calming — whether people will say, ’OK, these are not the police, maybe we can feel safer.’ ”
Still, some said Tuesday that such actions would do little to discourage the kinds of widespread protests that have become commonplace in recent months in cities across the country.
“The greater the revolution, the greater the repression, and the activation of the National Guard is not going to stop people from protesting,” said Daunasia Yancey, founder of Black Lives Matter Boston. “It hasn’t, and it won’t.”
Dugan Arnett can be reached at dugan.arnett@globe.com.