Police reform bill OK’d by House

Compromise moves to Senate for vote Tuesday

PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island House has approved a proposed rewrite of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights – long blamed as an obstacle to the firing of bad cops.

Approved on a 58-to-14 vote on Thursday after a heated two-hour debate, the long-sought compromise was born of the public anger and frustration sparked by a string of incidents of alleged police misconduct locally and nationally, including:

The 2020 murder of George Floyd

● while in Minneapolis police custody.

Closer to home, the obstacles to

● firing multiple Rhode Island police officers – one, for example, who shot an unarmed teenager, another accused of assaulting a handcuffed man, and yet another accused of breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s home to threaten her with a dangerous weapon.

At one point in the debate, Rep. Matthew Dawson, a former longtime state prosecutor, called the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, adopted in Rhode Island in 1976, one of the worst laws ever passed.

“The last 48 years have been nothing more than a cloak of secrecy over everything that happens with crooked cops,” he said. “We have got to put an end to this.”

But not all agreed the proposed fix goes far enough, including Rep. Cherie Cruz, who told colleagues her father, in his 20s, was shot in the back by a police officer and her mother was “beaten half to death in front of her children” while she herself “lived for decades with a wrongful conviction.”

She said nothing short of repeal will be enough “because I just have not seen justice for generations in my family.”

Among the key features of the compromise hammered out by House and Senate leaders and the police unions:

The freeing of Rhode Island’s gagged police chiefs to comment publicly on incidents of public interest, release video footage and suspend officers without pay for up to 14 days – and, if they are charged with a serious crime, indefinitely while their court cases play out.

The expansion of the current police-dominated “LEOBOR” hearing panels from three to five members, including three current or retired police officers, a lawyer and a retired judge,.

The legislation is now headed to the Senate, with final votes anticipated next Tuesday.

The proposed compromise does not go far enough for those who belong to the legislature’s “Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Caucus” who have advocated for outright repeal of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.

Elaborating at a news conference ahead of Thursday’s debate, Rep. Leonela Felix of Pawtucket compared what happened in the George Floyd case to what would happen here under the proposed new law.

In Minneapolis, she noted, Derek Chauvin, the officer ultimately convicted of murdering Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nine and a half minutes, was fired the very next day.

Under the terms of the proposed fix to the Rhode Island law, Felix said: “Chauvin wouldn’t get fired but suspended with all his benefits [in place] pending the criminal trial, which can take years, as we all know.”

Proposed amendment fails

Rep. Jose Batista proposed an amendment to give police chiefs the option to immediately fire an officer who uses deadly force “in violation of department rules and regulations,” without having to wait until the end of a years-long trial and a hearing by a

LEOBOR panel.

His history: In 2020, Batista was fired from his job as the head of a civilian-led Providence police review board in 2020 after releasing video footage of Providence police Sgt. Joseph Hanley assaulting a handcuffed Black man in an incident that led to an assault charge against the officer.

Prosecutors say Hanley punched, kicked and kneeled on the neck of Rishod Gore. Gore was in handcuffs on the ground at the time and repeatedly asked why he was under arrest while Hanley called him an “animal” and a “savage,” according to a video captured on a fellow officer’s body-worn camera.

The Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights prohibits the city from firing Hanley as long as his court case continues.

In March, a Superior Court judge declared a mistrial in the Hanley case after a jury deadlocked in his second trial. Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office plans to seek a new trial, a spokesman told The Journal on Thursday.

Hanley, meanwhile, remains on unpaid leave, with the opportunity to collect back pay if he is acquitted.

Batista cited the case as an example of what is wrong with LEOBOR and the proposed fix: “Four years and [potentially] three trials and [then] a conversation about pay, which I think is really counter to the values of Rhode Island taxpayers.”

Of the $124,000 in back pay the city of Pawtucket agreed to pay former police Sgt. Daniel Dolan following his acquittal of charges he shot an unarmed teenager, Batista said: “If I had hair, I might set it on fire. That cannot be the standard.”

But a number of the lawyer-legislators contended the amendment Batista proposed would be struck down as unconstitutional. It was ultimately tabled on a 47-to-25 vote,

“Every single American, whether you’re a law enforcement officer or a bottle washer, is presumed innocent until they’re [found] guilty. We do not hang people without trials in this country anymore. Thank God,” said Republican Rep. Michael Chippendale, the House Minority Leader.

Chippendale joined the parade of Democrats who described the bill as a responsible way to take officers viewed as a potential danger off the street while recognizing they have dangerous jobs that require split-second changes.