Marching for Eurie
By Rick Holmes
Aug. 9, 2020
On a cold night in January 2011 a small army gathered outside a modest house on a side street in south Framingham. The reason they were there was flimsy: Someone had told a cop there might be drugs inside. The reason they were so heavily armed and dressed like commandos to serve a simple search warrant was even flimsier. This was not a hostage situation or an active shooter drill. By the time officer Paul Duncan took his battering-ram to the door, the police already had the suspect in custody. They knew the only one left inside was Eurie Stamps Sr., who was neither a suspect nor a threat.
But hey were the SWAT team, pumped up and ready for battle. Duncan smashed through the front door, while others attacked through the back. They threw flash-bang grenades to disorient anyone inside. They found Eurie, 68, in his pajamas and had him lay face-down on the floor. Duncan was told to guard him while others searched the rest of the house. Moments later, Duncan shot Eurie in the head.
Nobody took to the streets back then chanting Eurie Stamps’ name. No politician objected when the Middlesex DA’s office declared the shooting an accident and Framingham returned Duncan to active duty. The family filed a civil suit that dragged on for years before being settled. Outside of the family, few talked about what happened to Eurie, even in Framingham. It was as if his life didn’t matter.
But there’s no statute of limitations on injustice, and Eurie Stamps was not forgotten.
Nine years later, on a hot Saturday in August, hundreds of people marched in Cambridge, his hometown, to say Eurie Stamps’ life mattered. Speakers described him as a “gentle giant,” his stature made even taller by a Don King-style afro. He brought spirit and humor to the basketball courts at Hoyt Field. He was the dad all the kids could count on to get them home safely and keep them out of trouble.
“Black Lives Matter” means we must see people like Eurie not as statistics, not as just another victim, but as individuals who are loved and missed. The first part of the marchers’ message is that Eurie Stamps was a good man. The second part is that what happened to him in Framingham was profoundly wrong and must never be allowed to happen again.
They will bring that message to Framingham on Saturday, Aug. 15. They will stand, socially distanced, in front of the Memorial Building at 2 p.m. and demand justice for Eurie Stamps.
What constitutes justice for Eurie Stamps? It starts with reopening the investigation of his death. The Middlesex DA’s report was effectively a cover-up, the marchers say. DA Gerry Leone’s investigators never put witnesses – the other officers in the house when the shooting occurred – under oath. They never put the case before a grand jury. They never did a forensics analysis to see whether the bullet’s trajectory matched Duncan’s description of what happened. Evidence produced for the civil trial showed it didn’t.
The new investigation shouldn’t be handled by the same Middlesex DA’s office that botched the first one. It should be undertaken by the state Attorney General’s Office, as is required for police-involved shootings in other states, or by the U.S. Department of Justice. While the courts must determine Duncan’s guilt, his carelessness has already been well-documented. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Duncan violated Stamps’ Fourth Amendment rights, and standard police training, by having his weapon pointed at Stamps’ head, with the safety off and his finger on the trigger. Duncan should have been fired nine years ago, and he should be fired now.
But justice also means doing what we can to prevent what happened to Eurie from happening to anyone else. There are a lot of good ideas about how to improve policing, and the Massachusetts Legislature has been wrestling with some of them. I’ve got my own list of policy changes directly related to the Eurie Stamps case:
1. Defund SWAT: Calling in SWAT is the most serious escalation law enforcement can make, endangering both civilians and police officers. It turns neighborhoods into battlefields and innocent bystanders like Eurie Stamps into casualties. It is organized police brutality. SWAT teams are trained to disorient their targets with noisy threats, to traumatize them into submission. SWAT raids get everyone’s adrenaline pumping, too often resulting in the shedding of innocent blood. In the wake of Eurie’s death, Framingham disbanded its SWAT team. The state Legislature should require other Massachusetts municipalities to do the same.
2. Demilitarize the police: All military-grade equipment should be returned to the military. “Peace officers” don’t need weapons of war.
3. End “qualified immunity”: Courts have expanded the doctrine of qualified immunity to help police escape accountability for violent acts committed on the job. That shield should be reduced or removed.
4. Prohibit police “no-knock” raids: Invading someone’s home without warning – especially when there is no crime in progress – is unconstitutional, unnecessary and dangerous.
5. End the War on Drugs: Eurie Stamps was an innocent casualty of the decision to put the problems of substance abuse and addiction in the hands of the criminal justice system. This failed policy, in place for 50 years, has destroyed countless lives through incarceration and violence.
What happened to Eurie Stamps nine years ago is the same thing that happened in March to Breonna Taylor, another innocent killed in a midnight SWAT raid. Like George Floyd, Eurie was on the ground, submitting to the police officer who killed him anyway.
In all their names, we must demand justice.
Rick Holmes, former opinion editor for the MetroWest Daily News, can be reached at rick@rickholmes.net. Follow him on Facebook at Holmes & Co and on Twitter @HolmesAndCo