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Miquel Estrella, killed by police a week ago, was remembered on Sunday with a march, speakers and vigil in downtown Pittsfield on Sunday evening.
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'No Justice No Peace': Community Marches For Miguel Estrella

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
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Family and friends are demanding answers about the fatal shooting. At right is his sister, Elina Estrella.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A crowd of nearly 200 marched on Sunday afternoon from Persip Park to City Hall and Park Square chanting "No justice no peace" and "Justice for Miguel," who was killed by police more than a week ago.

Miguel Estrella's family is demanding answers to the fatal shooting that is under investigation by State Police.

Police say the 22-year-old city man was in a state of distress when he was shot while wielding a knife last month.

"Miguel didn't need guns, he needed help, Miguel didn't need the police, he just needed help, anybody from the fire station could have just sat down and had a conversation but instead they sent guns and crooked a** officers,"  Estrella's older brother Corey Johnson said.

"Justice for Miguel, justice for his mother, who came here from [the Dominican Republic,] believed in this place, said, 'I want to take my children and give them better opportunity,' how crazy is it that Miguel was deeply involved in your community, in our community, working for Habitat for Humanity, his mother feeding the homeless, and he got killed by the police."

The group stopped at different times along the march for people to speak. Marchers held signs, including a banner that read "Miggy's World," and some wore shirts that said "Justice for Miggy."

The event also recognized Daniel Gillis, who was killed by Pittsfield Police Officer Christopher Colello in 2017 after police said he advanced on them while distraught with a knife.

Elina Estrella, Miguel's sister, said the wanted to turn the event into a positive by demanding change and making sure that it does not happen again.

"We just want answers," she said, asking whether proper protocol was used when responding to her brother.

Estrella's mother, Marisol Estrella, described him as a marvelous person who gave her hope when he walked into her house with a smile and said, "Yo mommy."

She recognized the many other mothers whose children have been killed by police.

Dubois Thomas, neighborhood revitalization director at Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, said the city's system killed Estrella and the people are responsible for changing that.

Estrella had volunteered with Habitat and Thomas said he helped with creating affordable shelter for about six families in the community. A small housing frame that Estrella built was wheeled around the march and participants were encouraged to sign it.

"Miguel joined the Habitat family many years ago, he was a 15-year-old volunteer at the ReStore, and even that early, his natural leadership skills were clear," Thomas said. "He was eager to learn more, he was willing to do what it takes, knowing that the road to becoming an electrician was very long, but he was still determined even after the pandemic hit,"

"Miguel was a rock, a reliable team member who kept our builds going."

NAACP member Kamaar Taliaferro said Police Chief Michael Wynn had responded to the killing of George Floyd in 2020 by saying if the city's police training does not resonate with residents, it needs to be changed.

"I did not know Miguel personally but I know this city," he said. "And I know how this city treats its young men of color, enough is enough."



Barbara Atim Okeny of Diverse People United and the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition said, as a woman of color and a mental health professional, the mental health of Black and brown individuals is too often criminalized.

"When people of color experienced mental health crises, the default response has become the police despite the fact that interactions with the police are more likely to lead to an arrest unnecessary involvement in the criminal system or harm," she said.

"There are real systemic barriers people of color to access mental health care, especially during a mental health crisis, the current state of our mental health care system does not do enough to support people of color with significant mental health issues, the current systems in place for emergency crisis response largely involves the police, people with untreated mental health concerns are 16 times more likely to be killed during an interaction with the police, 16 times."

Atim Okeny also pointed to a history of anti-Blackness in policing.


Marisol Estrella, Miguel's mother, raises her hand at Park Square as she addresses the crowd. 

"We need to acknowledge the culture of policing, the systems that police operate with, they were built on ideals of white supremacy, anti-Blackness," she said.

"The racialized history of this country includes policing, this is historic trauma that is triggered by recent acts of police violence, the police have only continued to perpetuate this trauma, causing racial trauma for communities of color."

Speaker Michael Hitchcock argued that the city's police budget can support additional mental health workers to respond to people in crisis nonviolently.

In the fiscal year 2021, the Pittsfield Police Department's budget was $11,516,231.

"I got to tell you the police budget is very inflated and I think we can and should afford to make these changes without them," he said. "Eleven million dollars for what? To be brutalized, terrorized, and occasionally murdered?"

The Police Department does work with mental health and substance abuse counselors; one had gone off shift about an hour and half before the shooting. Police had been called along with ambulance personnel but Estrella reportedly refused treatment. Police responded again just minutes later.

Pittsfield attorney Rinaldo Del Gallo was seeking signatures for a petition to have the Pittsfield Police equipped with body cameras and dashboard cameras.

"Video footage greatly assists in the preservation of the truth with respect to police encounters," the petition read. "It neither favors the citizen interacting with the police nor the police officers themselves — it neutrally captures what actually occurred."


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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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