Time to Wake up Dracut’s Woke Politicians

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By: Brian Genest – Aug. 2020

Do you support the police? Do you support law and order? Do you support the politicians “representing” Dracut who are working against both?

This is no time for town citizens to be silent about supporting the men and women of law enforcement. Instead, it’s time to speak up, speak out and back the blue. Some of the first people you should educate are some of Dracut’s elected officials.

At the top of the list is State Senator Barry Finegold (D-Andover), who we’re also stuck with in Dracut, Lawrence and Tewksbury. Finegold joined his colleagues in the renowned Massachusetts Senate and did what they are renowned for doing: damage. In this particular case, it was the passage of a bill full of controversial police “reforms” (translation: “reprimands”).

Worst of all, the legislation takes away qualified immunity from police, legal protection from civil lawsuits when a clearly-established violation of law is lacking. The bill will tie the hands of police, empower criminals, force good officers out of the profession, prevent good people from joining the ranks and make every man, woman and child in every community in our state less safe.
In the true spirit of the way the Democrat-controlled legislature runs on Beacon Hill, the bill was done with the usual amount of transparency, accountability and integrity: ushered through without a public hearing in the middle of the night. Ain’t good government grand?

The Senate passed the bill at 4:11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Of course, they hope you’ll never know or you’ll hopefully forget.

Later that day, when the people of Massachusetts were actually awake, Finegold issued a statement, “The bill is a step in the right direction towards greater accountability and equity in our law enforcement system.”

The Massachusetts Police Association sees the bill a little differently than our state senator.
“We cannot support a measure which takes handcuffs off drug dealers and gang bangers and puts them on police, allows criminal records to disappear while tearing open police personnel files and allows criminals to appeal for monetary damages while denying police due process to appeal for their job,” MPA Executive Director James Machado said in his own statement.

Someone should send the statement to our Congresswoman Lori Trahan, too. She’s another progressive, anti-police politician and co-sponsor of a so-called “justice in policing act.” The bill on Capitol Hill is just like the one on Beacon Hill: it provides justice for protesters, rioters, looters and everyone but the police. In other words, she’s for chaos instead of the cops.

In her news release, Trahan called the anti-police bill transformative legislation that will overhaul policing in America and begin to rebuild the trust between officers and the communities they serve. Uh-huh. What about the trust between our elected officials and the communities they are supposed to serve? And what about supporting the vast majority of good, honest and dedicated officers who risk their lives every day to protect us all, including the elite, thankless and clueless?

Speaking of clueless, neither Finegold nor Trahan were anywhere to be found at the recent Rolling Rally to support the Dracut and Methuen police departments. But hundreds of their constituents proudly attended to support the brave men and women of law enforcement. That’s the huge, sad difference between the citizens of Dracut and politicians like Finegold and Trahan right now: We want to defend the police and they want to defund them.

Brian Genest is chairman of the Dracut Republican Town Committee and a member of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee representing the Second Essex and Middlesex district of Andover, Dracut, Lawrence and Tewksbury.