By Cassidy Jensen
CONCORD MONITOR
A month after an employee called the police on Black couple Magalie and Barry Lawrence at a state office in Concord, activists are criticizing how the Department of Environmental Services and the Department of Health and Human Services handled the incident and are calling on the agencies to change their practices for involving law enforcement.
A group of 19 activists and local residents signed a letter sent to DES Commissioner Robert R. Scott and DHHS Commissioner Lori Shibinette on Tuesday, asking the commissioners to present a plan with new or revised policies that spell out when police should be called.
“Unless or until this happens, we have significant concerns that State offices and facilities are unsafe for people of Color,” the letter said.
Lidia Aloyo Yen, lead organizer with Concord for Change, and Clifton West, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Seacoast, were among those who signed the letter.
The activists faulted the agencies for granting public-facing workers the discretion to call the police. “Such a policy allows and ensures that race will remain unchecked as a reason that employees may call the police on members of the public,” the letter said.
Commissioner Robert Scott said that the department had received the letter and was examining its policies in light of the Lawrences’ experience. “They have an important perspective we want to make sure we incorporate,” Scott said.
The review will include policies on calling the police and potentially training for staff. “It’s an important issue to us,” Scott said. “I don’t want to diminish this in any way, but we’re always looking at ways to improve our procedures.”
In a joint statement from the two agencies, DHHS spokesman Jake Leon and DES spokesman Jim Martin said that they regretted the Lawrences’ experience at the Hazen Drive office and were taking the issue seriously. They also said the Attorney General’s office had been asked to look into the matter.
When asked about the letter by the Concord Monitor, Magalie Lawrence said she had no further comments.
The police callMagalie and Barry Lawrence visited a state office building on Hazen Drive in Concord on Feb. 22 in order to resolve an error in Magalie’s COVID-19 vaccination records.
While they were there, the Lawrences became frustrated with Department of Health Human Services employees and raised their voices. A receptionist from the Department of Environmental Services, which shares the office space with the Department of Health and Human Services, called the police.
A state trooper arrived and spoke to the couple, but left after a third employee of DHHS intervened and helped the couple resolve the original issue. They were not arrested.
Barry and Magalie Lawrence have said that they never posed any threat to any of the state employees — and that the choice to call the police on them was a racially biased one.
“Throughout the Lawrences’ interaction with your employees, your staff operated based on offensive and dangerous racial stereotypes, assuming or perceiving that the Lawrences were more threatening or dangerous than any other person who raises their voice just because of the color of their skin,” the letter said.
The letter also said that the agency’s leaders had failed to respond adequately to the Lawrences’ concerns after the fact.
On Feb. 22, Magalie Lawrence wrote to Scott, saying that the receptionist should not have called law enforcement to resolve the situation. “Any person who calls the police against a person of color for a trivial issue is making a conscious decision to see them dead,” Lawrence wrote.
The commissioner responded in an email that said, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. We shall use this feedback to hopefully improve our services,” according to a screenshot provided to the Concord Monitor.
Scott said he had fired off the email quickly to let Lawrence know that he was looking into her complaint. “It wasn’t meant to be the full response,” he said.
How the agencies handle bias complaintsAt the Department of Environmental Services, complaints about violations of the agency’s nondiscrimination policy, posted publicly in buildings like the one on Hazen Drive, go to the agency’s legal unit. The phone number listed on the notices rings at the desk of Administrator Pam Monroe.
Monroe said that the agency hasn’t received any complaints about violations of the policy in the last two years, longer than she has had this job. If she did receive a complaint, she would begin by consulting with the New Hampshire Department of Justice and the DES Human Resources Administrator. She would also reach out to the Office of Civil Rights at the Environmental Protection Agency if the complaint involved a violation of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination by offices that receive federal funds.
Monroe said she has informed the New Hampshire Department of Justice about the Lawrences’ concerns. “We are certainly addressing what are our practices here,” she said.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, discrimination complaints made against staff go through the DHHS Office of the Ombudsman.
Under the state law that created the office, the ombudsmen can provide meditation or “other means for informally resolving complaints.” Since October 2020, there have been 1,764 complaints against staff, with 2 involving allegations of bias due to race or ethnicity, according to Leon.
Diversity trainingsSome state agencies conduct their own diversity trainings. Employees at DHHS go through diversity and cultural competence training, which aims to help staff identify how cultural attitudes impact their daily interactions. To create cultural competency in an organization, the workbook lists suggestions like “understanding how each of our backgrounds affects our responses to others” and “actively eliminating prejudice in practices and policies.”
All executive branch employees are trained on the state’s “Respect and Civility in the Workplace” policy by the Department of Administrative Services. Slides for the training tell workers that “words and actions with good intentions may still have a negative impact” and that they should speak up about unfair or discriminatory treatment of colleagues.
Beginning this April, an optional online course called “Diversity and Inclusion: Awareness to Action” will be available to state employees. The course goals include understanding which workplace policies fail to foster diversity and inclusion and teaching students “to develop a strategy to improve your anti-racist policies, practices, and procedures.”
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