FITCHBURG — Residents voiced concerns to police over ICE operations in the city at a City Council Community Meeting Monday, with Fitchburg Police Chief Steven Giannini saying while not perfect, the police response to the ICE arrest last fall was handled correctly and did the job as far as protecting everyone involved.
Several aspects of policing involving both city police and Fitchburg State University officers were discussed at the meeting, which was run by City Councilor Bernard Schultz. But much of the talk revolved around the ICE incident last fall and thoughts about how to handle similar incidents going forward.
“ICE is on everybody’s mind right now,” said Charline Laakso, who noted Gov. Maura Healey has suggested potential regulations to deal with ICE agents in the field as have several cities and towns. “I don’t know if Fitchburg has anything in place or anything on the books but, if not, would it be prudent for us to act proactively?”
“Sure,” said Giannini, saying he could only comment on the situation in Fitchburg that had happened in the fall on Kimball Street. He said the police reviewed what happened afterwards and “looked to see if we could do things better. But, I’ll say this, the Fitchburg Police Department, or any municipal police department, we don’t enforce federal laws, we don’t enforce immigration laws. We don’t ask people their immigration status, that includes even if they are arrested.”
Giannini said that, for the incident in fall, “some of the perception was that we were helping ICE, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”
He said officers had done an initial pass when ICE was doing the arrest, as ICE asked them to “perform a specific action,” but the Fitchburg police said it was ICE’s operation so Fitchburg officers weren’t going to participate.
The Fitchburg officers then left the scene, and Giannini said, “the ICE agents called and asked us to come back, said they were in fear of their safety because there was a crowd or a mob forming.”
He said officers came back to the scene and acted to keep the crowd of onlookers and the ICE agents apart, saying the crowd was hostile toward the ICE agents. He said the officers followed protocols and the incident did not escalate, so he feels it was a success.
“We kept the peace. We weren’t involved in the apprehension or the ICE action, and the situation was resolved,” Giannini said.
One resident asked if police were able to tell if ICE was acting legally or not, saying in some cases nationwide it seemed they might have overstepped their authority.
“ICE is a law enforcement agency,” said Giannini, saying that ICE has access to both administrative and criminal warrants. He said ICE did not alert the police department ahead of time about what they were doing, but he said, he doesn’t expect them to. “It’s not reality, they have no intention of checking in with us.”
But he said the Fitchburg officers did ascertain that ICE was involved in an authorized arrest.
“My officers are trained to go in there and use their best discretion,” Giannini said. He admitted they were surprised that ICE only had their warrants available to look at on an iPad, not printed out, but he said, “Our supervisor talked to their supervisor, there was certainly no doubt that they were really ICE agents … and they appeared to have a lawful purpose to be there.”
Questioned again whether they could confirm what ICE was doing that day was constitutional, Giannini said, “ICE is unpopular, but they are a lawful law enforcement agency in this country, regardless of, if you love ’em or hate ’em. … If they come to the city, we’re able to talk with them and verify that they’re truly federal agents and they say they’re in the city to do this on this particular day and we have a warrant, then we’re going to take them at their word unless there’s a real reason not to.
“And as far as use of the (Fitchburg) force, it is completely impractical and I’ll go as far as to say dangerous to ask a Fitchburg police officer, just who works the street in Fitchburg, a few years out of the Police Academy, to show up on scene of a federal operation and start determining if they are doing their job right. … Day to day, real life, that I have to send my officers out into those situations, it is not practical for them to start second-guessing another law enforcement agency.”
Another resident said some people were afraid to participate in protests due to the ICE agents.
Giannini said there have been a series of No Kings and ICE protests, noting, “those have been peaceful.” He said from his experience, ICE agents have not been targeting the protests.
“I really encourage the citizens of Fitchburg, which is very diverse, to not to be in fear to go [to] a Latino festival,” Giannini said. He said he’s heard people say they were worried about ICE, saying, “They were afraid ICE was just going to come up with six vans and start grabbing people, that’s really not happening.”
City Councilor Sally Cragin read a note from a Fitchburg High School student, who said people are afraid that “ICE will come for us next,” and voiced fears that ICE was going after anyone “with an ounce of an accent.”
Cragin suggested police should speak to students at the high school, and Giannini said he would welcome having the police speak there, noting the police have good working relationships with students at the city’s schools.
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