News
Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment
News
Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard
News
Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response
News
Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment
News
HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest
After a six-month search for a new executive director, the Cambridge Police Review and Advisory Board will now be able to investigate complaints filed in response to the July 2009 arrest of Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., professor and director of the W.E.B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies.
Marlissa S. Briggett ’88, a civil rights attorney living in Arlington, will serve as executive secretary of the advisory board—a committee of five Cambridge residents responsible for reviewing complaints about the Cambridge Police Department, according to the Cambridge Chronicle.
Following Gates’ arrest, City Manager Robert W. Healy and Police Commissioner Robert C. Haas formed a panel of 12 professionals from across the country to analyze the policies and procedures of the police department and its relationship with the community.
Shortly after the ad hoc panel was assembled, the Police Review and Advisory Board voted to look into three complaints about Gates’ arrest in September, but the lack of official leadership hindered the investigation. The advisory board has been without a director for much of the past year.
The Cambridge Chronicle reported that Briggett will also take on responsibilities as Cambridge’s new executive director of the Human Rights Commission, which investigates discrimination claims in housing, employment, education, and public accommodations.
Briggett, a civil rights attorney, was previously a commissioner on the Arlington Human Rights Commission and an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Briggett could not be reached for comment yesterday.
—Sofia E. Groopman contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Zoe A. Y. Weinberg can be reached at zoe.weinberg@college.harvard.edu.
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.