A few days ago, ABC6 News reported that Peter Larkin, a former attendance officer with the New Bedford Public Schools, was fired over comments advocating violence toward Black Lives Matter protestors that could best be described as lynching:
“I would roll tanks and bulldozers. Mush any human in the way. Shoot everyone else. Pile up the bodies and burn them on national tv.”
Deirdre Ramos, the mother of two boys, one of whom is still a student at New Bedford High, alerted the School District to Larkin’s violent ravings. She told ABC6 reporter Amanda Pitts, “It makes me wonder, you know, what type of behavior was he displaying to the students of New Bedford?”
A great question. How many other racist lunatics are New Bedford students being exposed to?
On June 30th, Superintendent Thomas Anderson issued a statement decrying “individual statements” by racists and calling New Bedford Schools an “anti-racist organization” but did not specify whether Larkin would continue to be employed with the District. On July 2nd ABC6 reporter Pitts announced via Twitter that Larkin is no longer employed with the New Bedford Schools.
According to Larkin’s LinkedIn page, he is a 2005 graduate of UMass Dartmouth, has a masters degree in Education from American International College, and was employed by the Bristol County Sheriffs Department from 1991 to 2005 as a “Detective Lieutenant of Internal Affairs.” Larkin resigned from the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) three years after botching an investigation the BCSO undertook without “assistance from other police agencies.” He had failed Basic Interrogation 101: reading a suspect her Miranda rights. One lawyer described the low quality of BCSO investigators, “They’re not trained for investigative work,” while another called the BCSO itself “a task force of goofballs who couldn’t cut it as real cops.”
Larkin then tried his hand as a “Corporate/Private Security Agent” specializing in “sensitive employee” issues, “union strike and picket line security, and surveillance.” All this Pinkerton and inept police work apparently qualified Larkin to go to work for his wife’s employer as an attendance officer working “closely with school resource officer[s] and [the] juvenile court system.”
Despite his degree in education, Larkin’s professional background is mainly that of a cop. His homicidal fantasies on Black Lives are hardly unique to cops and may not be all that unique among school employees. ABC6 asked the School Department if another contributor to the same Facebook discussion was a School District employee but a spokesperson replied only “that NBPS does not comment on ongoing investigations or personnel matters.” We imagine this problem runs much deeper in the School District.
The Larkin incident, which necessitated a response from Superintendent Thomas Anderson, is bound to cause more ripples in New Bedford. In 2018, while Superintendent Anderson was being considered for the position he now serves in, so was Larkin’s wife Heather. And her candidacy was supported by an unlikely ally: the New Bedford police union.
One might ask why the New Bedford police union has any interest in the choice of a school superintendent, but in March 2018 union president Henry Turgeon endorsed Larkin with this rationale: “A safe and secure school system will directly translate into a more positive culture and climate,” Turgeon said. “Dr. Larkin’s expectations for the New Bedford Public Schools, both culturally and academically, are in line with our union platform and it is our opinion that safety, a climate of security, and positive police/student intervention will directly lead to our students academic and social success.”
While Heather Larkin may have been seen as ready to do her part for police culture in the schools and ultimately to keep the school-to-prison pipeline moving, hubby Peter wanted to skip the pipeline altogether and go directly to public lynchings.
We are gratified that Superintendent Anderson moved so quickly to address parent concerns and register NBPS disapproval of Larkin’s threats, but it is clear that Larkin is hardly an exception. How many other Larkins — owing their jobs to political or family connections, and with questionable or totally unsuitable professional backgrounds — are we imposing on the city’s children?
If the New Bedford Schools truly are an anti-racist organization — and we have every reason to take Superintendent Anderson at his word — NBPS must undertake a thorough review of its staff and teachers and begin to make it reflect the demographics of the community it serves. NBPS can start by examining the extent of racism in hiring and firing policies, and move on to assessing the extent of patronage and nepotism in the schools.
Comments are closed.