MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The ACLU submitted the request for the records of street-level encounters between BPD officers and civilians for the period since 2010 in September 2014. The request was made amid growing nationwide concern about racial discrimination practiced by police in the United States.
"The people of Boston deserve to know, and the law says that they are entitled to know, what is happening between civilians and Boston Police Department officers on the streets of Boston,” Matthew Segal, the director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said, as cited in the press release.
According to the ACLU, the records are necessary for academic research on the subject of racial minorities’ encounters with law enforcement officers. The US law requires police to turn over public information within 10 days.
Numerous killings of unarmed African-Americans by white US policemen have sparked nationwide protests over the past few years.
In July, an ICM poll revealed that a third of US citizens considered police racism to be the main cause of the high number of blacks killed by police in the United States.
