Student allegedly assaulted by school volunteer
Previously convicted of child abuse, former police officer Patrick Cahill was working with high school athletes
WOONSOCKET – A suspended city policeman who is appealing a 2014 conviction for child abuse was remanded to the Adult Correctional Institutions on a bail violation last week after he was arrested on new charges of punching a 16-yearold student at Woonsocket High School, where he was allowed to volunteer with the football team.
Witnesses said Patrick Cahill, 28, was seen putting the victim in a headlock and twice punching him in the face, shortly after school was dismissed on March 27. School Resource Officer Joseph A. Zinni, who was still on duty, said he heard a disturbance in the hallway near the cafeteria and saw the victim walking towards him with a bloody nose, sobbing.
Cahill told officers he had been in an argument with the boy for distracting football players while they were training with weights. He said he told the boy to leave and began pushing him out of the room when the boy refused, triggering a confrontation. Cahill never admitted throwing a punch, but he told officers that he “brought (the victim) to the ground” after the boy “got into his face.”
Cahill was charged with assault and disorderly conduct by the Woonsocket Police Department after the incident, which has also resulted in an investigation by the Woonsocket Education Department, according to Schools Supterintendent Patrick McGee.
One question school officials are trying to answer is whether a proper criminal background check was done on Cahill before he was allowed to volunteer with the football team, said McGee.
He said state law normally prohibits anyone with a felony conviction from working with youth in a public school, but it’s unclear whether any laws were broken in Cahill’s case because his conviction is on appeal.
“Within the school department our first priority is to ensure the safety of all students and all student athletes,” said McGee. “We take that very seriously.”
But McGee said the WED’s internal investigation had not yet verified whether the background screening with the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification was performed at all, or whether personnel in charge of the volunteer program received erroneous information about the status of the check.
“We’re trying to look at procedures and policies to make sure they reflect the statute,” the superintendent said.
Cahill is due in Sixth District Court for a bail review hearing this morning, according to the judiciary’s site.
He was ordered held without bail at the ACI last Tuesday after being presented as a violator of the terms of his release pending appeal of his conviction on earlier charges that stemmed from an attack on his half-sister nearly five years ago, when she was nine years old. Cahill was 23.
The charges stemmed from an incident that occurred on Aug. 20, 2012, at 25 Newport Ave. Police said Cahill chased the girl out of the home he shared with his father, then dragged her back inside by the hair and choked her, leaving her gasping for breath.
The attack allegedly happened after the girl went into Cahill’s room while he was watching television to ask for permission to go outside.
After a jury-waived trial, Associate Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini found Cahill guilty of one count of second-degree child abuse in October 2014. The judge sentenced Cahill to 10 years, including six months at the ACI, with 114 months suspended, coupled with probation.
Upon a motion by defense lawyer Robert Mann, however, Procaccini stayed the execution of the sentence pending appeal to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, Cahill had been released on bail with an assortment of conditions, among them that he surrender all his firearms, seek mental health counseling and refrain from contact with the victim, according to the judiciary’s web site.
In addition to the criminal investigation, the alleged attack prompted the Internal Affairs section of the WPD to initiate a disciplinary hearing against Cahill under the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights. Upon his arrest, Cahill was suspended from the police force without pay.
Detective Sgt. Matt Ryan, a spokesman for the WPD, said Cahill’s status is unchanged. Citing the Bill of Rights, Ryan said such proceedings are confidential and he could not address Cahill’s situation in any further detail.
According to police reports, at least five students between the ages of 14 and 15 witnessed Cahill attacking the boy at the Cass Avenue high school last week, and all corroborated the victim’s account of what happened, to one extent or another.
Only one of the juveniles claimed to have observed Cahill punch the boy in the face, however. The other students did not see the punches but they did see Cahill pushing the boy and put him in a headlock in the hallway outside the cafeteria.
The boy’s injuries were described as minor, but he was taken to Landmark Medical Center.
“Patrick did not say (the boy) struck him or attempted to strike him at any time,” Officer Zinni noted in his report. “Patrick did not have any visible injuries.”