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Somerville Five
Ten Lessons from the Criminalization of Dissent
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Three of ‘Somerville Five’ still suspended
Around thirty people attended a community meeting against racial profiling and police brutality took place Tuesday October 4 at the Somerville Library. Largely organized by the International Action center (IAC), the meeting heard from students and parents concerning their experiences with suspension from high school while under police accusations.
Two of the “Somerville Five” students were allowed back to Somerville High School in September, because their charges were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors. Under the State law a student charged with a felony may, according to the discretion of the superintendent, be suspended indefinitely, if he feels the student is a danger to the school.
The three remaining students, still facing felony charges, have been refused re-admission by the superintendent.
This despite several meetings with advocates for the students, a phone/fax campaign, and letters of support from church and community leaders saying the students had no previous disciplinary problems and did not pose a safety threat to the school. Advocates are also trying to get them into another school.
Superior Court on Thorndike St. in East Cambridge on October 13, and the two juveniles will face proceedings on October 19 at Juvenile Court on Third Street, East Cambridge "These kids were on the college track, they want to go back to school. This has been going on since April. It could last a year. They don't know when the trial will start," said Phoebe Eckert, an advocate for the five students and a member of IAC. "Where do kids go when they're not allowed in school?"
One young man told the October 4 meeting about how got into a fight at the Minuteman regional vocational high school and was suspended even though the student with whom he had the fight did not want charges pressed.
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His mother explained that they got a transfer to Watertown High. But on the first day he attended, he was called into an office where a police officer was waiting. Watertown then refused to let him attend school there either.
One of the Somerville Five mothers, Elizabeth Belfon, prefers to use the term “Medford Five,” since it was Medford cops who attacked them and charged them with being the attackers.
Another mother said that it was “well known” that every year , at carnival time, some of the Medford cops would “go wilding.” The incident that led to the suspensions happened in West Medford across from the police station right after the carnival.
Under the State law permitting the suspensions, some 1700 young people have been barred from attending high school. Around 300 of them never returned to school.