Accountability is the issue

Even the Fraternal Order of Police recognizes that changes are overdue in the Providence Police Department. But it's the same old story -- any gains are hard-won and it's grassroots leadership, not CIty Hall, that is driving the process

by Ian Donnis

Cornel Young Jr.

It was surprising enough to hear Michael Marcoccio, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, give even a guarded endorsement of a civilian review board concept that was presented during a recent meeting of the Providence City Council. But a far more improbable scene unfolded a short time later at the Biltmore, in the lounge at Davio's: the executive board of the police union wound up chatting amiably over drinks with members of Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), the gutsy South Providence activist group, after bumping into them and other review board proponents. "I still say I was dreaming -- that the FOP would even be in my company," says DARE organizer Mary Kay Harris. "A few months ago, we never would have been able to put that together."

The importance of this kind of enhanced comfort level among traditional opponents is pretty significant. It's even more important when compared to the kind of protests and submerged discontent that flared after Cornel Young Jr., a black Providence police officer, was shot and killed one year ago -- January 28, 2000 -- when two white colleagues mistook him for an armed criminal. Trust, after all, is a necessary ingredient for fostering meaningful change. And just as Young's death forced Rhode Islanders to wrestle with the question of whether he might still be alive if he'd been white, a series of ongoing problems has made it abundantly clear that improvements in the police department are long overdue.

It's bad enough that minorities in Providence and other American cities, who have long suffered the brunt of police misconduct, have a justifiably jaundiced view of our criminal justice system. But a raft of self-inflicted embarrassments -- particularly allegations that several officers threatened and roughed up attendants at Intown Parking over a $6 fee in December -- hastened the departure of Colonel Urbano Prignano Jr., an old-school cop who wasn't really up to the challenge of contemporary police management, and magnified the perception of a lack of accountability. As proponents contend, creating an external review board could be the single most important step for strengthening a department that's suffering from an erosion of public confidence.

It's no wonder that FOP leaders, concerned about the rank-and-file being unfairly painted with a broad brush because of the abusive and reckless behavior of a relatively small number of officers, got on board with this proposal. They still face the task of selling it to their membership. But as Marcoccio told me, elliptically but with certainty, "We're trying to change as the city changes. Policing is different than in the past . . . There has to be change."

This kind of incremental progress would have been unlikely without both the steady woes with police and the loss of Young, the son of the highest-ranking minority officer in the Providence department, who was killed as he interceded while off-duty in a late-night fight at the Fidas diner. At the same time, it's telling that the latest impetus for change has come not from City Hall or the leadership of the police department, but a grassroots coalition composed of Ward Nine Councilwoman Patricia Nolan, state Representative David Cicilline (D-Providence), an expected mayoral candidate in 2002, and activist groups like DARE, the Ministers' Alliance, the Center for Police and Community (CPAC), and the Center for Truth and Criminal Justice. These proponents make a compelling case that external review would be good for the police and the community. And they're optimistic that the concept -- which has been fiercely and reflexively opposed by the Fraternal Order of Police in the past -- is, at long last, bound to become a reality.

Mary Kay Harris

Demonstrating a serious civic commitment, it was Harris and her colleagues at DARE who spearheaded research on external review, developed an open and collaborative dialogue with police officials, and tapped $1200 from their agency's modest budget to bring two Minneapolis officials to Providence to talk about that city's well-regarded civilian review process. It was this same kind of grassroots leadership that enabled the Ministers' Alliance and a far-flung multi-racial coalition of supporters to drive the concerns raised by Cornel Young Jr.'s death onto the state agenda last year, raising the prospects for systematic reform (see "Stand and deliver," News, April 13, 2000).

As far as the larger picture of taking on racism -- or at least getting things more out in the open -- many observers, including Young's parents, are encouraged by much of what has happened since his premature death at 29. It's beneficial even for members of police unions and activist groups like DARE to have had the chance to interact with each other as members of Governor Lincoln Almond's Select Commission on Race and Police- Community Relations.

And four months before its final report is due, the commission made an important symbolic stand by arranging a State House news conference on Tuesday, January 23 -- five days before the one-year anniversary of Cornel Young Jr.'s death -- to unveil two preliminary recommendations that could have a far-reaching impact: creating accreditation standards for police agencies in Rhode Island, and establishing a single police academy, rather than the three that now operate with different rules and curriculums. Citing a serious level of support from law enforcement officials, including police unions, Bernard Lafayette, an educator and civil rights veteran of the '60s who chairs the state commission, says, "That gives me hope."

At the same time, it's hard to ignore the role played by race and poverty in examining why Providence Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. and some other officials have been slow to come to terms with problems in the Providence Police Department. Asked why more leadership has come from activist groups than City Hall, Cianci says, "I would say that's the case in most every city in America. I think there are certain groups that get involved." Not surprisingly, the mayor characteristically downplays the difficulties with the police, describing them as overstated. Pointing to the relatively sparse attendance for some meetings of the select commission and a similar blue-ribbon panel in Providence, Cianci and Public Safety Commissioner John Partington suggest that public dissatisfaction with the police is far less than that indicated by activists. "If we had all those problems that they talk about, where are the rest of these people?" asks Partington.

Richard T. Sullivan

Another view, one backed by Cicilline and activist Matthew Jerzyk, is that it's the perennial detachment by these kinds of top city officials about the clear need for change, rather than any lack of public interest, that explains why more people haven't turned out for the public meetings. As Jerzyk says, "If this stuff was happening on the East Side, these problems would have been solved a long time ago."

As for Mary Kay Harris, whose personal outlook was transformed after her son was injured during an 1996 altercation with a Providence officer, she doesn't believe that progress, beyond talking, has been made in the year since Cornel Young Jr.'s death. Still, as she says, it would have been inconceivable not so long ago that leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police would sit down with DARE, let alone work together for progress. The activist group, after all, had waged a successful five-year court fight to obtain records of complaints against police, and members of the FOP and DARE once defined their interests as being diametrically opposed. "[But] sitting down at the table with us, the blindfolds were sort of taken of," says Harris. "They saw we're just people looking for change -- positive change -- community and safety. And that we're working for the same things that they're working for."

TO HIS CREDIT, Major Richard T. Sullivan, a 24-year Providence police veteran, came on his own initiative to a January 4 luncheon at the John Hope Settlement House, where the Providence External Review Campaign (PERC) -- made up of groups like DARE, CPAC, and other supporters -- presented its proposal for a Minneapolis-style external review board. "I'm just on a learning mission right now," says Sullivan, who'd been selected a few days earlier as the department's interim chief and is slated to start Thursday, February 1. "I think I want to say that the door is open, that if the community wants me to come to their community, I'm willing to come."

Dubbed by Cianci as "Mr. Accountable," Sullivan, 48, with his Army-influenced polish and pledge of accessibility, represents a stylistic contrast from the volatile and dismissive Prignano. And it's encouraging that Sullivan envisions the department as a service-oriented institution that should work in partnership with the community it serves. The dividends that could be yielded by a real commitment to community policing, for example, are evident in Boston, which, with a far larger population, routinely recorded more than 100 homicides a year during the apex of the crack era, but last year had just a few more than the 31 homicides in Providence.

As the interim chief, Sullivan has an edge when it comes to retaining the permanent chief's job, and although many observers see the need for a serious search process, Cianci showed his hand during a news conference when he basically mocked the need to consider out-of-town candidates. As far as PERC's external review proposal, Sullivan remains non-committal. The big question, of course, is whether the incoming chief, as a product of the Providence police, can really bring about the kind of reforms that are needed. Most members of the 470-member department -- who got seriously disenchanted with Prignano only after allegations surfaced as part of the federal Plunder Dome probe that a $5000 bribe was paid on behalf of a recruit, and that favored cops got advance copies of promotional exams -- would certainly like to leave the problems of the last two years behind them. And it's likely they'll pull together behind Sullivan, who could build momentum on some much-needed plans, such as a more aggressive effort to increase the number of minority officers.

But the incoming chief betrayed his institutional bias -- and some would say considerable naivete -- in expressing complete confidence in the existing procedure for resolving citizen complaints against police. Noting that the Intown Parking case produced an investigation, Sullivan says, "[the officers fielding the complaint] didn't say go away -- the community should look at that as positive . . . I would encourage the public to come forward. We're only as good as the [help we get from] citizens," and if citizens aren't going to bring complaints to the police, "we're in trouble."

To hear some people tell it, though, it's hard enough for minorities to even file a complaint, much less get a satisfactory conclusion. "They won't even give us reports a lot of times," says Jon Mahone, a black educator and activist in his 20s from the West End, who attended the meeting at the John Hope Settlement House. "You have to basically threaten them. People don't realize the obstacles that we have." Contending that relatively few cases of misconduct in poor neighborhoods hit the press, he notes that even the attendants at Intown Parking were reluctant to come forward. And because police have stopped him without cause and talked to him in a rude manner, Mahone says, "You walk around with that fear."

Similarly, Mary Kay Harris says she was unable to get a complaint form when she went to the police station after her son, Reginald Chaney, was involved in a dispute with Providence Officer Randell P. Masterson in October 1996. Masterson claims he struggled with Chaney after Chaney tried to hit him with a car, while Chaney, who was knocked to the ground after being hit in the head, says he was the subject of an unprovoked attack. Unsatisfied after filing a complaint with the police, Harris -- who left a corporate sector job to become an activist at DARE -- took her case to the FBI, and Masterson was indicted on brutality charges by a federal grand jury. In 1999, the charges were dismissed because of misconduct by a Washington, DC-based federal prosecutor. Harris, who says the city offered her a settlement after she pursued a civil suit, sees the case as an example of how police brutality goes unpunished. Referring to the mark on her son's forehead, she asks, "Four years later, we're still saying, `Why does he have that scar?' "

Masterson's lawyer, Michael J. Colucci of Warwick, says he's hard-pressed to understand why critics feel the complaint process is flawed. "Every complaint is investigated and every complaint is taken, no matter how frivolous," Colucci says. "The City of Providence does more than most cities in this part of the country to investigate this kind of complaint. There has yet to be a finding by a hearing officer that has been overturned by a jury in court." Comparing the police-administered complaint mechanism to the way that physicians police their own profession, Colucci suggests the criticism is misplaced. "You'd have to look at the complainants, the people who are making that charges," he says. "I've had plenty of people who make complaints who don't even show up."

But if everything was going so well, the US Justice Department wouldn't be conducting a preliminary probe of Providence police -- expected to come to a juncture in the coming weeks -- that could become a full-scale patterns-and-practice investigation. And the notion that police have an inherent bias in judging complaints against their brother and sister officers isn't exactly a shocker. The fact that the leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police is offering support, after decades of stymied attempts to create a civilian review board, shows that police know they have a credibility problem. "I think the police officers are tired of reading about a member of the force engaged in the kind of misconduct that we've been reading about," says Cicilline. "Police officers that I've talked to are getting really tired of that."

As it stands, the current complaint process is marred by flaws, from a failure by investigators to interview primary witnesses in some cases to a practice in which other officers, even though they're not supposed to be there, attend internal hearings to show support for an accused officer, says Derek Ellerman, executive director of the watchdog group Center for Police and Community (CPAC). "It's very intimidating," he says, noting that officers are represented by an experienced lawyer, while many of those making complaints are low-income residents who can't afford their own counsel. Over the last few years, Ellerman says, fewer than 2 percent of complaints against police have been sustained.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse is among those who have pressured Cianci to consider outside candidates for the permanent chief's job. "Somebody who is inside the department, as long as they bring an outsider's independence and judgment, can do a good job and will have the additional advantage of knowing the personal and administrative terrain," Whitehouse says. But that's clearly a pretty difficult standard to meet, and, as the prosecutor says, "I think it will get worse before it gets better as the Justice Department inquiry, Plunder Dome, and all those things go forward."

AS ENVISIONED, the Providence External Review Board would take the process out of the police department and give the responsibility for vetting complaints to an executive director, a legal counsel, three civilian investigators and 15 appointed board members. Complaints would be initially reviewed by the director and then be forwarded for dismissal, investigation or mediation. Cases that aren't dismissed after an investigation would then be heard by a five-member hearing panel, and after a sustained verdict, the chief of police would be asked to recommend discipline that would be imposed by the panel. Either party could appeal the decision to Superior Court. Proponents plan to bring a proposal, in the form of an ordinance, before the city council in the coming months.

The fact-finding and hearing process is modeled on the civilian review authority in Minneapolis, where a crisis of public confidence led to the creation of that board in 1990. Tensions were exacerbated by a string of incidents, including one in which police executed a search warrant at the wrong address, starting a fire with a flash grenade and killing an elderly black couple. At the time, Minneapolis cops were known as "thumpers," and a suit involving a single officer cost taxpayers $2 million.

Police tend to dislike the concept of civilian review because they believe civilians are hard-pressed to understand the difficult split-second decisions that officers often have to make. It was no different in Minneapolis, where officers were less than thrilled about the introduction of civilian review and a former chief tried to undercut it. But the process gained support from a new chief, who came from out of town, the police union got on board, and it has since been credited with reducing lawsuits, cutting excessive force complaints in half, and serving as an early warning system for identifying overstressed officers.

Of course, civilian review, rather than being a panacea in itself, really depends on the kind of commitment that is built into the process. But in Minneapolis at least, officers now prefer to go through the civilian review than an internal affairs investigation, says Lieutenant Carol Serafin, chief of internal affairs for the Minneapolis police. "I think we've got a better and more professional police department because of civilian oversight," says Serafin, one of the two Minneapolis officials flown in by DARE to appear before the city council and meet with the community in early January.

Despite the success of the Minneapolis model, Cianci and Partington remain wary. Cianci calls the proposal "good, if it's not agendaed," but says he hasn't heard enough about it. In a pattern that was familiar before Cornel Young Jr.'s death unleashed a submerged level of discontent, the mayor attaches little urgency to the need for change. "We've had some tremendous improvements in the police department and also some shortcomings," he says. Voicing support for Sullivan's incoming leadership, Cianci suggests that the department just needs to be "tweaked."

Partington concedes the Providence department has "more than a handful of people who can be a little out of control," but he describes the number of complaints as small compared to the overall level of police activity. Expressing support for a "happy medium," the commissioner questions elements of the proposed external review board, including the $300,000 cost and the appointed board of 15 members. "We're a small community. There are counties in California that are bigger than Rhode Island," Partington says.

Sure, but it's not because of Rhode Island's diminutive size that the US Justice Department is conducting its preliminary inquiry of the Providence police. In the minds of some observers, it was because of perceived stonewalling and official indifference that Cornel Young Jr.'s mother, Leisa Young, brought in Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. to file a $20 million wrongful death and civil rights claim against the city last year. And while technological improvements -- cited as the upside of Colonel Prignano's tenure -- have value, such changes are more easily accomplished, and ultimately much less important, than the need for police to enjoy the confidence of the people they serve.

Just look at New York City. It's good that locals and visitors alike can visit Times Square with a greater sense of safety than 10 years ago. But after the torture of Abner Louima at a Brooklyn station house in 1997, and the shooting death of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx in 1999, it's worth noting that New York's finest are now emphasizing the need to build a better rapport with residents. And it's no coincidence that one of Janet Reno's last acts as attorney general -- following a period in which exultation over stunning drops in crime gave way to a recognition of police scandals like the one in Los Angeles and the persistence of racial profiling -- was to issue guidelines for stopping police misconduct.

GROWING UP on Chester Avenue in South Providence, Cornel Young Sr. knew what it was like to be scared of the police. But after knocking over a can of garbage on a dare as a child of 12 or 13, Young was set on the path to becoming a cop when an officer -- a big white guy with blond hair and blue eyes -- "scared the living bejeesus out of me," placing him in the back of his cruiser, and making him write 100 times, "I will not knock over garbage cans." Even though there was an unwritten law that blacks weren't allowed to become cops in those days, Young made it into the department as a young man and eventually climbed into the administration, getting promoted to major in 1995. It comes from his own experience when he calls for more community involvement by officers and adds, "These young kids need to know that they can trust the police."

At the same time, Young remains torn by the question of whether race played a role in the death of his son, Cornel Jr., who followed him into police work and emulated his belief in community service. "I ponder it over and over . . . I believe they may have shot too quickly because they saw a black man with a gun, possibly. I hope and pray to God it wasn't a racial thing. I hope and pray to God they didn't shoot too quickly . . . I know this: he's a hero. He tried to help the people, and he tried to help his fellow officers. I'm very proud of him."

As the Youngs prepare for separate memorial services -- one organized by Cornel Young Sr. is planned for Saturday January 27 at 11 a.m. at Fourth Baptist Church, and the one arranged by Leisa Young is slated for Sunday, February 4 at 5 p.m. at St. Michael's Catholic Church, the pain of their shared loss may well still seem fresh. But they can take some solace in the way that their son's death was crucial in breaking through years of complacency and inertia on racial inequities.

Like her former husband, Leisa Young is encouraged by the level of discussion about race and police-community relations that has come about. She still has questions about what happened to her only child, however, and adds, "I don't feel like we've solved anything yet." At the same time, Young says she has been sustained by the concern of others, and the way in which more dialogue is taking place even among individuals. "I know in my heart that something positive will eventually come," she says. "There's sadness in me, but not a feeling of ending or defeat."

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.