With recent revelations that three members of the Providence Police Department have been arrested for drug dealing, a little perspective is called upon from the Lockdown Lowdown...

Do you honestly believe they caught every dealer or illegal operator in the department? With 700 folks working in an organization, a little malfeasance should be expected from time to time. But in this situation it is worth noting the rank of who is caught and their connections in the department. Forgive me for not providing you with all the research, but know that a Sergeant and a Detective are not "rookies." Nor was the Detective arrested in the recent assault on Luis Mendonca.

These officers must have felt a sense of safety to deal drugs. Did they learn it from those who came before them? Are they well-connected with their superiors in case something suspicious came up? I know at least one former drug dealer who called the Attorney General's Office and explained that he was outright robbed by Detective Colanduono, who worked with DEA taskforces and the like. Of course years ago, the Detective was unimpeachable. Now it remains to be seen how many fishy cases will come to light. Surely a few folks at the ACI are slapping high-fives in the Yard.

The allegations that Sgt. Gonsalves is a drug addict do not excuse his behavior on the job. It does, however, show the widespread nature of addiction and how a society hell-bent on demonizing and incarcerating addiction will have less success in creating a healthy community. This man also served as the Mayor's driver for 18 months, which is reminiscent of the Mayor's troubled brother, an attorney who clearly preyed upon drug dealers in multiple ways.

Mayor Cicilline wants to implement invasive drug testing policies on the police. Such tests are not a viable way to solve the problem. A drug user is not inherently bad at their job, although it is likely we will discover how many pot-smokers on the force- a fun fact to expose hypocrisy but little else. Drug tests are beat all the time, particularly if you know the tester. It is better that the Police Brotherhood develop some policies designed to take a medical approach to addiction, an interventionist approach, rather than keep their head in the sand until people are losing their careers.

Do Providence residents trust the leadership any more than the Rookies? That's the question on whether "better oversight" will ease the community's outrage and fear. I think the distrust starts at the top, with Cicilline and Chief Dean Esserman.

How many convictions at the ACI will the Attorney General and police swear are legitimate? All of them.
How many Probation Violations based solely on a policeman's report will they admit are tainted? None of them.

Nearly 4000 people sit at the ACI, and nearly 30,000 in the community are on probation. Every single one of them who claimed they were framed, called out on deaf ears. Richard Beverly's case was 48A Dismissed after 2 years of sitting in prison; after already receiving a 90 month sentence on Probation Violation. Why was it dismissed? Because a 911 Tape (that was available 2 years earlier) was finally turned over to Mr. Beverly. At this time it was clear the officer was lying. Richard still served over 3 years in prison and 3 years on parole, as no court would throw out his Violation time... and no Attorney General would relent in this "conviction."

Because of Richard Beverly, I spent months in the law books finding out how our Probation Violation system came about, and why there are no effective remedies for his situation. In 2002-03, I filed Sentence Reductions, Post-Convictions... and tried telling the world about it. One dirty cop gets found out, and the System still does not want to reveal a "crack in the foundation" for fear the whole thing will topple. So in 2007 I proposed a bill to Rep. David Segal about just this sort of situation. It took a few years of educating folks, but an amended version has since passed the General Assembly twice only to be vetoed by a Governor who clearly is not concerned with innocent people in his prison.

How many innocent folks at the ACI is an acceptable number? Powerbrokers need to look in the mirror and answer that one.  A bill to record interrogations in capital cases comes with it a question over price-tag.  I testified that you could outfit all the departments for less than the cost of a few bullet-proof vests... but I might have said it costs less than one innocent person in prison at $40,000 per year.

My first obvious brush with heinous injustice came with the Brennan case. Reading the materials showed an obvious railroading of two brothers, Mike and Tommy Brennan, as a way to close a case... and apparently protect the actual killer who (allegedly) is in a connected family.

On the face, it looks like a few members of the 1984 Providence P.D. were straight up dirty. In hindsight, I don't think anyone finds that hard to believe. Unlike Chicago (where 17 Death Sentences were tossed out because of dirty cops and coerced confessions), Providence isn't keen on re-opening any files to check for bedsores. They would rather let it sleep, but tell that to the victims who get three hots and a cot.

Whereas Faith in the police is like a blind religion, their cover-up champions are not always malicious. Maureen McKenna Goldberg, for instance, may have just seen herself as cementing the convictions of guilty people when she indicted the Brennans under shady circumstances 2 days after the murder... and again when she wrote the Kafkaesque opinion as a RI Supreme Court Judge years later. But not recusing herself for conflict? Looks dirty on the face.

David Cicilline may also have firmly believed the Brennans guilty when he was asked to represent Mike on Post-Conviction appeal. If so, however, he should have got off the case. To sit on it for 7 years, throwing his appeals process into a structural nightmare of barred review... that just looks dirty.

And now he is the head of the Providence Police, and wants to be our Congressman.

All of this begs the question of whether the higher-ups view the police as working for them, or working for the community. And whether these millionaire "public servants" really see themselves as subject to bona-fide oversight. A PR campaign every four years is not oversight, just product management. Cicilline, Esserman, and the lot of them have stood in the way of an effective Providence External Review Authority, a citizen review of the police. Ironic, considering Cicilline was all about the "people" on his climb up to the top.

The proper reaction by Mayor Cicilline would be to strengthen PERA. It is the only thing that could restore trust in the police, and faith that he truly cares.