Protest planned as Wyatt board slates public meeting
CENTRAL FALLS – After postponing a meeting scheduled for earlier this week, the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, which oversees the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, will hold a public board meeting this evening.
The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. tonight inside the gymnasium of the Wyatt Detention Facility’s training building, located at 935 High St. The board will take public comment and address items on its agenda including the discussion of the forbearance agreement between bond trustee UMB Bank and the Detention Facility Corporation, and reports of the warden and director of finance.
The meeting was originally slated to be held Monday evening, but was postponed at the last minute after a group of demonstrators were expected to turn out in large numbers. Tonight will
represent the first public gathering of the Detention Facility Corporation since an incident last month wherein a prison employee struck protesters with his pick-up truck.
Protesters from Never Again Action and the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance have already stated their intention to hold a demonstration at tonight’s public meeting.
Officials with Never Again Action believe that the updated forbearance agreement with the Wyatt’s bondholders would “solidify and expand the Wyatt’s contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to serve as a detention facility
for migrants. It would also set into motion steps to swiftly sell and privatize the prison, removing what little public oversight currently exists.”
“We cannot stand idly by and allow unaccountable, outof-state bondholders to profit off of the inhumane treatment of detainees in Rhode Island,” representatives from the group said. Never Again Action also called on Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and other elected officials to commit to passing legislation that would
ban private prisons from operating in Rhode Island.
“We also call on the four members of the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation board of directors to fulfill their obligation to the communities they represent by either voting against any agreement that includes continued collaboration with ICE or resigning from their positions immediately,” a press release from the organization stated.
The Attorney General’s Office, Rhode Island State Police, and Central Falls Police Department continue to investigate the incident outside of the Wyatt on Aug. 14 in which protesters were struck by a pick-up truck allegedly driven by a prison captain.
Several hundred people were picketing outside of the detention center that night to protest the Wyatt’s housing of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees from the southern border.
The detention center on High Street has been at the center of controversy over the past few months, stemming back to March when Central Falls Mayor James A. Diossa held a press conference at City Hall complaining what he described as a “backroom deal” between the Wyatt and ICE to house detainees from the southern border. The mayor also said that the prison needed to be shut down immediately.