The race to replace outgoing two-term Mayor Linda Tyer is between city council president Peter Marchetti and former city councilor John Krol. The pair met for the NAACP-hosted debate at Conte Community School in Pittsfield’s Westside neighborhood Monday night. The most recent crime statistics released by the Pittsfield Police Department show an overall 38% decrease in total crime over the last five years. Krol was asked to articulate why he’s called for a heavier police presence in the city’s core.
“My wife was just downtown, she parked in the McKay Street parking lot, and she was approached aggressively by an individual asking for money and it scared her and there was no one around and there was no police presence," he said. "This is happening each and every day. There are different types of individuals who are there. There are panhandlers who are in need, and they need resources. There are individuals who are part of an operation on the streets, and they're making a great deal of money. And then there are people who are more aggressive. So yes, we absolutely need foot patrol in downtown Pittsfield. It's something that I've been talking about since the very beginning of the campaign. Merchants feel as though that they don't that it's not a safe environment right now, and so that doesn't encourage investment. So, there are a lot of empty storefronts, there are a lot of businesses that have left North Street, so we have to do a lot better. Downtown foot patrol is a start of a revitalized downtown Pittsfield.”
“In my opinion, the behaviors and the activities that we see happening in our downtown involve more than just a police presence," said
Marchetti. "It involves mental health professionals to be downtown to be helping these folks. You know, if we really want to put an end to it, we need to make it very clear to the people of Pittsfield that when you see someone standing on a street corner, take that $20 that you'd want to give to that person, put it in your pocket, and write that check to the local charity that can help them. We cannot continue to allow the activity to take place. We've started the process of a median pedestrian safety ordinance to be able to take people off of the streets, and we need to make sure that we do all that we can to get the folks to help that they need. And that's a lot more than just police presence.”
The council president noted that the winner will have the ability to appoint the city’s next permanent police chief after Michael Wynn stepped down this summer — the first since the national reckoning with systemic racism in American policing in 2020 and the first since the police killing of Pittsfielder Miguel Estrella last March. The 22-year-old was in the depths of a mental health crisis at the time.
“One of the things I hear all the time in the campaign is the word ‘trust,’ Marchetti continued. "Well, if we have people in Pittsfield that can't trust members of our Pittsfield police force, what are we going to do to change that? What are we going to do to break down those barriers? Those barriers may not be real, but if it's perceived to be, they are real. What can we do to break down those barriers? I use his name all the time when we're having conversations: Darren Derby. Darren knows how to get into the community to make relationships, and that's what we need the entire PD to do. And that's what I'm talking about changing a philosophy. And I'm not saying send a police officer to every call. We have already begun creating additional first responders, we need to add to that program, and we need to ensure that when someone arrives at the door for a 911 call that we're sending the right personnel to there, whether it be a member of the Pittsfield Police Department or whether it be a member of the Pittsfield Police Department with a mental health professional.”
Officer Derby has built up a Facebook following of around 179,000 with posts about his work in the Pittsfield Police Department. A police misconduct database published this year revealed that Derby was disciplined for criminal conduct including “Improper Seizure of Cell Phone, Improper Dissemination of Official Information, Improper Search of Cell Phone, [and] Illegal Seizure of Person and Cell Phone” over a January 19th, 2022 incident. Derby received a written reprimand.
“A core of my view of public safety has been to reinstitute community policing," said Krol. "You know, we had a long period of time where we went away from community policing, and the philosophy of the police chief was that officers stay in their cruisers because that's the most efficient way to respond to a call in the city no matter where you are. And I understand it. I understand that philosophy, but I disagree with it wholeheartedly. And when we've had meetings here in the Westside Neighborhood Initiative, so many meetings here in this building, downtown Pittsfield, people clamoring for community policing. And for many, many years, they were told no, that's not how we do things. And I don't agree with that. When our neighborhood initiatives, which I hope we’ll reinstate under a Krol administration, are asking for community policing, they should receive it. Also, we should think about working with the state and looking at available resources that I don't know if the city of Pittsfield has done, things like the equitable approaches to public safety, EAPS- Those are things that we have to look at seriously, and pull in resources that we currently aren't utilizing.”
The election is November 7th.
