Top cop Superintendent Steven M. Pare talks about the smoke shop raid and bringing greater diversity to the state police By Ian Donnis

A MONTH has passed since the Rhode Island State Police raided the Narragansett Indians tax-free smoke shop in Charlestown on July 14, setting off what has become a prolonged political headache for Governor Don Carcieri. Earlier this week, in a sign of lingering dissatisfaction with Carcieri’s handling of the episode, the Rhode Island Civil Rights Roundtable expressed alarm about the governor’s record on issues involving minorities and civil rights.

The current intersection of several charged issues — the smoke shop melee, ongoing concerns about racial profiling, and the case of Danny Sigui, the Guatemalan immigrant slated for deportation after helping to crack a Central Falls murder case — threaten to diminish trust in law enforcement for at least some Rhode Islanders. But Superintendent Steven M. Pare, who has prioritized increasing the ranks of minority and female troopers since taking on his post 18 months ago, remains bullish about the outlook for making some differences.

It doesn’t hurt that for many Rhode Islanders the state police remain a bastion that has had the traditional wherewithal to take on corruption and organize crime when other agencies might have been found wanting. In the aftermath of the smoke shop raid — when troopers were given the improbable task of closing the shop and withdrawing in the face of resistance — Pare made the best of a difficult situation by steering clear of the subsequent political sniping.

Although their personal styles and professional challenges are very different, Pare and Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman share some things in common, particularly a seemingly keen desire to overcome bureaucratic inertia in the name of greater community responsiveness. It’s an interesting role for Pare, a 43-year-old West Warwick native with something of a slightly retro aura who appreciates both tradition (his father, Edward, served as a state police captain) and the more complex nuances of contemporary policing. The colonel talks both about filling the big shoes of such predecessors like Ed Culhane and the legendary organized crime fighter Walter E. Stone, and the importance of reaching out to minority communities. And judging by voter approval last year of a hefty bond to help establish new headquarters in a more central location like Cranston or Warwick, the state police, who trace their lineage to 1925, have a strong measure of public support.

Pare spoke with the Phoenix earlier this week in his North Scituate office.

Q: In terms of the smoke shop incident, how has that affected state police relations with minority communities, and what repairs, if any, do you see as necessary?

A: Well, obviously, it has affected the relationship with the Narragansett Indians and I’m concerned with that. And I’m sure it’s had an impact on the overall minority community as well — to what extent, I don’t know. It’s too early. We’re in the middle of a recruitment effort and I want to continue on recruiting minorities and females for the state police. We need to continue to build trust between the minority community and the state police, and I have every intention, despite the smoke shop situation, to do that.

Q: You have cited increased diversity in the ranks of the state police as a priority. What steps are you taking to diversify the department and what results have come about so far?

A: A few months ago, back in April or May, we gathered with a lot of the minority community leaders to help us. We reached out to them and said, "We need your help to opening the doors in the minority community, in a recruitment effort." And they were gracious enough to spend a lot of their time meeting with us, coaching us, guiding us, opening the doors to their communities, to assist in getting the message that they are welcome in the state police.

They will be given every opportunity that every person will have, regardless of their race or gender. That perception of needing to have someone in the ranks for you to get in — knowing somebody, either politically or in the ranks in the state police for an opportunity for a career is just that — a perception. And if you have the qualifications and you meet our standards, you have an opportunity. That’s going to take a long time to knock down those perceptions and barriers that exist between the state police and the minority communities. We’re doing a better job. We’re going to work harder to do an even better job.

We have, I think, right now, 205 sworn members of the state police, of which about seven percent are minorities [and] I think, eight percent are female. We have one minority female as well. We’re in that six, seven, eight percent range presently, and through this period of recruitment, we have about 18 percent minorities that have applied for the state police, and we have about the same — 17 percent — women that have applied for the state police. So it’s doubled the number that we presently have, and we’re hopeful that we can continue to build on the present percentage, so we can reach the goal of mirroring the community that we serve.

Q: In terms of the smoke shop incident, why did the state police not withdraw when they encountered resistance from the Narragansetts?

A: As I’m sure you’ve seen, the internal report has been publicized; a couple of reasons. We didn’t immediately withdraw because we had troopers inside the smoke shop and there was some resistance within as well. So we needed to protect our own people and ensure that they didn’t get hurt. And, secondly, the resistance was both verbal and physical resistance. It didn’t escalate to where somebody was going to be seriously injured or killed as a result of our attempts to execute a warrant. The skirmishes that broke out were skirmishes that the commander in charge of the scene was very comfortable with; he had enough personnel to manage those skirmishes. So for those reasons — that will be the focal point, I think, of the [state] commission that will look at resistance, and what level of resistance, and what my interpretation and orders from the governor were, and whether that meant any level of resistance whatsoever or a certain level of resistance.

Look, I can’t guarantee — our police officers can’t guarantee — there’ll be no resistance. There could be resistance on a simple traffic stop. You have to keep in the back of your mind, but you never plan for — you just react [if a certain] level of resistance occurs, whether it’s minor verbal resistance or it escalates into a physical struggle.

Q: Around the time when you became colonel, you told Charlie Bakst that your father, his inclination was to look at things as black or white, and your outlook was somewhat similar — that you tended to look at things as either being right or wrong. After being in the job for about two years, has your perspective changed — do you find things are sometimes more ambiguous than you thought they might have been?

A: Sure, nothing is right or wrong, black or white — that clear. That perspective was from the perspective as a young law enforcement officer and perhaps a supervisor going through the ranks — it’s either right or wrong, there’s no in-between, there’s no gray matter. But in this position, there’s certainly a lot of compromise, a lot of differences, and at times, it’s not clearly black or white, right or wrong.

Q: On mandatory retirement, what are the practical realities of losing top staff on an ongoing basis, and what kind of chance do you see for changing this policy?

A: The chance has not been well-received over the past 18 months since my tenure [began] as superintendent. The practical realities are, as the command staff, presently comprised of eight members — me included, so exclude me, there’s seven that fall under mandatory retirement. Right now, five of those seven have to retire in the next 20 months. So the reality of trying to build a new facility by command staff members when those command staff members will be in the retired ranks in two years is a real struggle. So I need to start building a younger command staff for some stability in the next four-to-six years.

Q: Why is there so much opposition to changing the policy?

A: It’s not so much a policy — it’s a clear law, it’s a Rhode Island general law. And some of the political people that I speak with in the General Assembly, asked if there’s political will to change the law, there isn’t too much support. The reason that is, the rank and file see an opportunity, sees constant turnover, and if there’s a change in that, then they see stagnation and a missed opportunity for them. The flip side of that coin is we’re retiring men — there hasn’t been any women yet that face mandatory retirement — we retire men at a younger age, under 50 years old. And we have to replace them with people. It costs taxpayers, you know, the pensions, the health benefits, and you lose that experience. I hope to see some kind of compromise eventually, where, similar to the military, if you make it into a command role, then you can serve X number of years in that role, but I don’t see that changing in the near future.

Q: In terms of your interest in law enforcement, could you talk about how first became conscious of your interest, and whether there were particular movies and television shows that influenced your outlook in that regard?

A: I wasn’t much of a TV-watcher or a movie buff. So none come to mind immediately, but my dad had an influence on my life, and ever since I can remember, that’s all I wanted to do — to be what he was, and that’s a Rhode Island trooper. I have said this publicly before. It wasn’t a good plan, because if I had failed, I had no alternative. So, as I have young kids and I try to keep options open for them, I had none. I was fortunate that I had the opportunity to attain being a Rhode Island trooper. And so the biggest influence in my life, and for most young kids, is their parents, and particularly, my dad. He molded my life; I saw the way he lived his. I aspired to be what he was, and I had the good fortune in having the opportunity to do that.

Q: The state police have often been on the frontlines, in particular, in fighting organized crime and corruption in Rhode Island, and you’ve been personally involved in fighting a few of those cases. Do you think Rhode Island has more corruption than the norm, is it magnified just because we’re a small state, and if it does have an aberrant amount, why do you think that is so?

A: I don’t think we have any more corruption than any other state. Because we’re so small, as you’ve indicated, many people in our community read about it, find out about it, and are discouraged about corruption that goes on. I think we’ve done a better job in routing out corruption. We’re very proactive in the law enforcement field for going after corruption, and thereby, I think we’ve been successful in preventing the start of corruption.

Organized crime always has been here, will always be here. The root of organized crime is illegal gambling and over the years, there has been more legalized gambling, but there will always be sports betting and illegal gambling in the rackets. It’s not like it was 15 years ago, because I think there’s been a shift in power in this region, but organized crime is still active and we still dedicate resources to combating organized crime.

Q: In a situation like the Danny Sigui case, how do you reconcile the difference between law enforcement needing the trust of immigrant communities and the federal government wanting local law enforcement to be strict on immigration issues?

A: It’s a real balance there, with the complexities of immigration law, and we’ve met with organizations — CHISPA [The Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy] being one and their legal counsel — about having law enforcement act at the time as INS agents. It’s just so complex. That question about whether they’re here legally or not, and whether they have a green card, is offensive to some pockets of the minority community and a great percentage of them as well.

It’s a real complex issue. I don’t think there’s any solution to that, other than we’re not agents of the federal government per se and particularly, Immigration and Naturalization agents. I think the best course of action is, if there’s a warrant for deportation in the National Criminal Identification Center — NCIC, which is the national database for law enforcement — then we act on that warrant. Then it really isn’t our role to ascertain whether or not they’re here legally or if they’re on an expired visa, or all those other very, very complex areas that we just don’t have the expertise. But we have to partner with our federal brothers and sisters in government, particularly in law enforcement, so there’s a balance there. We haven’t yet struck that balance. We’re playing a more active role in homeland security since September of ’01, but we have to be mindful that we’re not immigration agents. We don’t have the expertise that one needs to have in that arena.

Q: Some of your initiatives — such as increasing diversity and emphasizing more openness — seem to represent something of a challenge to the conservative culture of law enforcement. You’ve been here in your tenure for about 18 months. What would you say happens when these kind of theoretical desires hit the real world?

A: [Smiles] You know, there’s resistance. We were speaking earlier, there’s always resistance — I think it’s human nature, and perhaps [with] conservative police officers it’s even worse about looking at a process and changing it for the betterment of your objective. One instance that I can speak about is our recruitment effort. I pledged to the minority community leaders, "Look, come in and help me. I’ll open my process to you. Give me some of your recommendations. Help me along in this process. So at the end of the day, the end of the training session, the end of the decade, we’ll be a more diverse police force that mirrors the community that we serve." And that’s where I’m going right now. We’re just about finished accepting applicants for recruiting state police officers, and we have established an examination tailored to the Rhode Island State Police in particular to those traits that we think are important in dealing with the public and making successful Rhode Island State Troopers. And we’re looking at our interview process as well, to make some changes to professionalize. Perhaps it had an adverse impact in the past on minorities and women. That’s not right and if that’s happening, I’m going to change it.

Some of the perhaps inherent resistance of changing — you know, we put a good product out. At the end of our recruiting, we have good quality people that serve as Rhode Island troopers. One view is, look, we do a good job in what we’re doing. Don’t change anything because you may lose it. We need to do a better job in recruiting minorities and women. That’s more important in my view than concerning ourselves that we may lose the tradition and the image that we have so long aspired to gain.

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