Providence (R.I.) Police Chief Dean Esserman announces the findings of a U.S. Justice Department 5-year investigation into patterns and practices at the Providence Police Department. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)
Justice Review: Providence police improving civil-rights record
By Gregory Smith
Providence Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The U.S. Department of Justice has concluded a quiet years-long review of alleged civil-rights abuses by the city police force and pronounced the force much improved.
The Justice Department found abuses, including the use of excessive force and resistance to citizen complaints of police misconduct, but collaborated with the Police Department to institute reforms, Police Chief Dean M. Esserman disclosed yesterday.
Those reforms, made with racial and ethnic minorities in mind especially, include tighter supervision and greater limitations on the use of force, a resort to less-lethal weaponry, establishment of a more receptive policy regarding complaints of police misconduct, and tougher reaction to confirmed misconduct.
For example, Esserman said Providence was one of the last departments in the nation to retire the use of the blackjack. The blackjack was replaced with a telescoping metal baton that Esserman said is less bone-bruising.
Dennis Langley, president of the Urban League of Rhode Island and one of the instigators of the federal review, congratulated the police for accomplishing “a radical transformation in their practices.”
“Your uniform is no longer tainted,” he declared.
Mayor David N. Cicilline and Esserman, accompanied by a slew of federal and state officials and community representatives, announced the conclusion of the review in the auditorium of the Public Safety Complex. The review was done by the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department but nobody who conducted the review was on hand.
In effect, Esserman said later, the government has given the police a seal of approval.
Esserman said the problems that have been corrected date to the tenure of former Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. Neither Prignano nor his lawyers could be reached for comment.
Even as the door has been closed on the civil-rights inquiry, however, the police labor union has sent a letter to the Justice Department asking for a new inquiry, into the reliability of police crime statistics. Lt. Kenneth Cohen, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 3, acknowledged the letter and said some members are concerned about the effect of rumors that the department is deliberately understating the extent of crime.
There is no final report of the civil-rights inquiry, the police say, merely an exchange of correspondence over the years between the Justice Department and the Police Department. Except for three letters, that written record was not made public.
Esserman did release letters from Justice Department officials in which they say the review is closed and commend the Police Department for having made “many positive improvements.”
The inquiry dates to the aftermath of the death of Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. on Jan. 28, 2000. Two white patrolmen mistakenly shot to death an off-duty black colleague who was holding a gun and was not in uniform outside an all-night diner. After a Rhode Island grand jury cleared the patrolmen of criminal misconduct, local civil rights leaders, clergymen and others went to Washington, D.C., and requested a civil-rights investigation of the incident.
The Justice Department opened a two-pronged preliminary review, of the possibility that the patrolmen deliberately shot Young in order to deprive him of his civil rights and of the “patterns and practices” of the police that possibly amounted to unlawful racial discrimination.
Federal officials found no proof that the patrolmen intended to kill Young and to violate his civil rights, and they filed no criminal charges. But in December 2002, a month before Cicilline took office as mayor, they announced a formal “patterns and practices” review. In January 2003, Cicilline brought in Esserman as chief.
With a Justice Department team looking over their shoulders, Esserman and police commanders set about making reforms. Rather than give orders, the federal team made recommendations, the police say. But it was understood that if the police resisted, the Justice Department was free at any time to file a civil suit under federal law to remedy abuses and, if necessary, have an independent monitor and staff appointed at city expense to oversee the police force.
The Police Department, among other steps:
•Put a greater restriction on the use of force, and changed the relevant training and procedures. More-realistic training scenarios were employed.
Supervisors for the first time were required to review every incident in which any force was used greater than the handcuffing of a compliant suspect and to make corrections if warranted. A shooting team was constituted to investigate immediately, no matter the time of day, when a weapon was fired. A use-of-force review board was created.
•Stiffened weapons training, replaced old rifles and shotguns and limited those who would be authorized to use the new rifles and shotguns. About 40 department members, the chief estimated, have permission to use a rifle or a shotgun.
Rather than qualifying with their sidearms on the firing range once a year, as required by law, officers were required to qualify twice a year. Users of rifles and shotguns were required to qualify four times a year rather than the legally mandated once a year.
•Put into use less-lethal weaponry including a beanbag launcher and Tasers, and limited the use of pepper spray. Fewer than 24 department members are authorized to carry the Taser, which shoots a suspect with wires carrying a disabling electrical current.
Department members also participated in a study group that enacted nationally accepted standards for the use of less-lethal weaponry, which the department observes. One standard, for example, calls for an ambulance to be summoned as a medical precaution for the targeted person. Esserman said Providence uses the most restrictive standards regarding Taser.
•Created a field-training program in which recruits are assigned to an experienced officer for their first year of service.
•Extended training to incorporate more diversity and sensitivity education. Providence runs the longest of the three police training academies in the state.
The review, according to Esserman, consisted of three phases: Identifying problems, making changes and monitoring the initial implementation of changes. The change-making phase concluded in November 2005, Esserman acknowledged, but the review was not formally wrapped up until a monitoring period had been satisfactorily completed.
Information From: The Providence Journal
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