Five police officers slain in Dallas
Local law enforcement expresses grief, pledges vigilance after murders of cops at protest
After five police officers were killed and several more wounded in an ambush attack on Thursday at a protest march in Dallas, law enforcement officers here in Rhode Island expressed shock, grief and frustration as they grappled with the terrible news.
Police commanders are encouraging their officers to remain vigilant in the wake of the slayings, while stressing the importance of community engagement. Meanwhile, several community activists from area urban centers voiced their support for law enforcement, even though they remain troubled by the recent police-involved shooting incidents earlier in the week that sparked the protests in Dallas and elsewhere.
Central Falls Police Chief Col. James J. Mendonca said that the “nonsensical violence which has recently gripped the country has impacted us all.”
Mendonca on Friday attended a press conference in Providence, standing alongside the governor, representatives from the NAACP, local and state police officials, and community leaders, saying that he believes in unity, particularly in the aftermath of the events of Thursday night in Dallas.
“We all believe the events in Dallas were shocking, there’s no excuse for it,” Mendonca said. “Also our hearts and thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones of those affected not only in Dallas,” but also in police-involved shooting incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota that sparked the protest in Dallas.
He said that it has made police everywhere more aware of the inherent dangers associated with the profession but also that it provides the necessity for broader police and community relations.
“As we proceed, those partnerships are extensively more valuable to us,” Mendonca said.
Mendonca said that there are many methods of policing that are already being implemented in the city. He said Central Falls Police and Rhode Island State Police share a neighborhood response team on Friday and Saturday nights through the summer, while grant money from the Department of Transportation and officers walking specific beats will allow them to enhance their presence on the roads as well.
“The biggest thing now is we’re not going to rest on our laurels,” Mendonca said. “We are being very proactive already. We want to do things that work well for us.”
Burrillville Police Chief Col. Stephen Lynch said that police were on alert Friday and making sure patrol officers responding to calls have adequate backup. He said his department tries not to send a single patrol car to a call.
“We want to have a second car as back up on a call whenever and wherever possible,” said Lynch, adding the move to have second cars as backup is purely precautionary.
Ever since the 2014 killings of New York Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, Burrillville’s Lynch has been communicating with his officers via roll calls, department wide emails and one-on-one conversations about being vigilant and aware of their surroundings and maintaining a keen awareness no matter what type of call they are attending.
Lynch says the department has and will continue to stress at role calls and through department wide communications for officers to be vigilant.
“This is a very difficult profession in today’s climate,” he said. “No call is routine. No motor vehicle stop is routine. I have been emphasizing this for some time now.”
“The majority of the people we deal with respect the police and the work that we do,” he added. “However, there are those that do not. But despite those feelings towards law enforcement we will continue to show respect and professionalism to the public from the onset of any encounter. But we also need to be very much aware of our surroundings and take nothing for granted. Nothing is routine.”
When asked if incidents like the ones that happened in New York and Dallas could happen in a town like Burrillville, Lynch said, “The assassination of a police officer can happen anywhere.”
“Last night, police officers in Dallas went to work at the protest march to protect the protesters and the citizens of Dallas and for that they were murdered,” he said. “This is a truly honorable profession. It’s an incredibly challenging profession. Police officers put their lives at risk for the community they serve. This is no cliché. They flat out put their lives at risk every day. I feel awful for the families of these murdered officers who have had their lives devastated.”
The head of the state chapter of the NAACP has condemned the slayings of the officers in Dallas, but stressed that the shootings should not lessen concerns over the killings of black men and women by officers across the country.
“I am deeply saddened by the horrific events which occurred this past week in Dallas, Baton Rouge and St. Paul,” said James Vincent, president of the Providence NAACP branch. “The shooting and killing of any police officer is indefensible and should be strongly condemned. We should also condemn any police officer who recklessly confronts an individual of color, or anyone for that matter, who complies with law enforcement leading to the senseless death of that individual.”
Kobi Dennis, founder of the nonprofit Unified Solutions and commissioner of the Rhode Island Midnight Basketball
League, has been working with police for the past six or seven years and is trying to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the black community through basketball, community forums and social media.
“I have learned to love and respect law enforcement just as I had to learn to love myself as a black man,” Dennis wrote on Facebook on Friday morning. “The police shootings are horrific and the killing of black men is horrific and has been for centuries. Folks will spend the next few months trying to divide us.”
He added that now is the “time to unite and continue the work,” encouraging people to take positive action steps instead of just writing inflammatory posts online.
Dennis said that one way to improve relations between police and the minority community is to get more young black people to join law enforcement. But he didn’t always feel this way.
Growing up, he “wouldn’t even stand next to a police officer,” because of innuendos and rumors and perceptions he’d heard of law enforcement.
It wasn’t his parents telling him not to like police; it was TV. It wasn’t his grandmother telling him not to like police; it was rap music.
But then he “started taking life seriously” and realized, “My kids are watching now. I can’t be talking like this about law enforcement.”
Bellingham Police Chief Gerard L. Daigle, Jr. says his department isn’t doing anything differently other than to “constantly hammer home” the issue of safety in the minds of every officer he speaks to.
“The advice that I’m giving my officers is to be alert, be aware of their surroundings and think safety first on all calls,” he said. “Things like this could happen anywhere and we are not immune. This is a very tragic situation and my thoughts and prayers are for the officers and their families.”
Gov. Gina Raimondo spoke to reporters about Dallas Friday on the Hamlet Avenue Bridge in Woonsocket, where she had gathered for a pre-scheduled briefing about Rhode Works.
“We have to get rid of the hate and heal the wounds in America,” she said. “We have to come together as a country and stop the violence.”
Raimondo said, “There’s almost no words to describe it when you see the viciousness and inhumanity... we have to do something to come together as a community to heal one another and care for another, get guns out of people’s hands, finally have real gun safety measures. And everyone – everyone – should be saying to themselves, ‘What role can I play to bring about a more peaceful and safe America.’”
Calling it “a horrible week of violence,” Raimondo said she’s had discussions with Col. Steven G. O’Donnell, superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police, to discuss whether any special measures are needed to shore up public safety.
“Right now I’m just very focused on reassuring the people of Rhode Island that we need to stay calm, we need to be peaceful and we need to take action,” the governor said.
Melissa DaRosa, a Pawtucket streetworker with the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, said that the rash of violence nationwide has been “very disheartening.” She said that within the last few weeks – both locally and across the country – there has been “a lot of anger,” and the institute is taking the stance that “gun violence is gun violence no matter who does it.”
“We don’t want that happening anymore,” DaRosa said. “We want to stop running away from the fact that there is racism and bigotry in the world and admitting that this is an issue within our system and trying to break down some of the injustices and try to figure out what’s the tone and to put things into action.”
DaRosa was with chiefs of police from Pawtucket and Providence as well as members of Rhode Island State Police and said “I’m a firm believer that we all have to stand together. It’s not us against them ... We all need to get behind one voice, we all
[S] ometimes good cops make mistakes in the millisecond they have to decide and act, and sometimes those mistakes have tragic consequences. But to suggest that the majority of police officers in this country are racist, out of control, and all the other terrible things people are charging is just not true.”
need to be kind and loving to each other.”
“Everybody has a job to do and moral obligations and we need to get to work,” DaRosa continued. “There’s a lot of work to be done. Recently all the violence in Pawtucket, we have to get a grip of it, we need to stand all together.”
In terms of the work to be done, DaRosa said there are laws and policies that need to be looked at and also people who may not come together naturally need to stand together. In doing so, she said, they have been “moving mountains.”
She said that the community policing training that police officers are receiving and the Neighborhood Response Unit led by Pawtucket Police Capt. Michael Newman are working to change the perceptions that people have of the relationship between the city and its residents.
“It’s actually a good relationship. Not everybody’s perfect but I think we have a strong department and that model is something that needs to be utilized and people need to look at what’s happening there now and I wish what’s happening in Payne Park can happen in other communities,” she said.
“Nobody’s perfect, but we have to stop the one or two bad apples from ruining it for everybody and we need to hold each other more accountable,” DaRosa said. She said that while people come together after a shooting, they need to be united more consistently and not require a shooting to stand together as one.
Veteran Woonsocket Police Lt. Edward Cunanan makes it a habit to keep a close watch on the grim inventory of line-of-duty police deaths across the country. He heads up the department’s annual COPS Walk, one of the biggest fundraisers in the region for families of police officers killed in action.
Cunanan said he was so troubled by the Dallas killings he stayed up most of the night thinking about it.
It’s tragic, he says, that innocent lives have become the price for the poor judgment or mistakes of a minute number of police officers whose actions are magnified under the lens of media attention.
After 25 years as a policeman in Woonsocket and Florida, he’s been in countless altercations in which he’s been injured, cursed at, spit upon and, from time to time, “called a racist simply because I wore a badge and had a job to do.” He says there were times he could have fired his weapon with ample legal justification to do so, but instead exercised restraint – which he’s thankful for.
He says he can say with absolute surety that “the overwhelming majority of cops are just like me... most cops are good.”
But “there are bad cops, period,” he says. “And it is often too difficult to get rid of them. Of course, sometimes good cops make mistakes in the millisecond they have to decide and act, and sometimes those mistakes have tragic consequences. But to suggest that the majority of police officers in this country are racist, out of control, and all the other terrible things people are charging is just not true, and it’s a narrative that is recklessly feeding attacks on police officers, culminating in Dallas.”
In Cunanan’s view, the violence against police officers is a grossly misdirected eruption of frustration. An adjunct professor of law enforcement at Roger Williams University, Cunanan agrees police work is in need of reform – but violence won’t help.
Police departments need more ethnic diversity on the front lines, more training in ethics and more powerful tools to weed out problem cops.
“At the same time I am calling for our people to stop putting police officers on the face of society’s failures,” he says. “Instead of demonizing all of law enforcement based on the actions of a small percent of bad cops, let’s address those factors that bring police officers and minorities— especially young black males— into volatile contact with each other. I believe that there is institutional discrimination in our country and the lack of legitimate opportunity and quality education feeds this problem.”
Cunanan says “we cannot excuse lawlessness for any reason, however legitimate, and there is absolutely no justification for resisting arrest and fighting with those who our society tasks with enforcing our laws. At the root of most bad events is someone who is doing just that. The street is no place for a trial.”
Cunanan is about to get a chance to make his views known in a forum where they might do some good: He’s been invited to the White House next week to discuss the final report from the President’s 21st Century Policing Task Force with the president’s staff. He said he was invited by a policeman from Meriden, Conn., who holds a doctoral degree in law enforcement.
“I don’t know where we are going in this country right now,” said Cunanan. “It’s disturbing for sure. I am hopeful that among the chaos leaders will emerge with clear direction.”
“It’s tragic,” said Cumberland Police Department Captain Alan Milligan as he left the department Friday afternoon with other department members.
“As the Chief of the Dallas Police Department said, police officers take an oath to protect the community and never know if they are going to make it home when their shift ends,” Milligan said. “They were assaulted while they were doing their job to protect people that were out to protest at the time.”
Like many public officials on Friday, Milligan pointed to a need for people to support the police in their duties even with the criticism being raised over the controversial cases. “With time, we hope people can still find it in their hearts to support their police officers,” Milligan said.
One bright spot at the Cumberland Department on an otherwise somber day for its members came from two local residents who stopped in to offer encouragement.
“We had two citizens reach out to us and they even brought in some food for us and expressed sympathy for the loss of our brother officers that were lost,” he said.
“Police officers put their lives at risk for the community they serve. This is no cliché. They flat out put their lives at risk every day.”