The Providence Police Department pulled together a summit last March at the
Holiday Inn Downtown in which ranking officers sat down and conversed with 200
community leaders and neighborhood activists from throughout the city. Although
this kind of get-together was hardly remarkable after a decade in which
community policing became a widely accepted mode throughout the nation, it
marked a decided change for the Providence police.
It was hardly coincidental that the summit occurred less than two months after
Richard T. Sullivan, a 24-year Providence police veteran, was sworn in as the
department's interim chief. Sullivan, who was introduced by Mayor Vincent A.
"Buddy" Cianci Jr., as "Mr. Accountable," seemed more in tune from the start
than Urbano Prignano Jr., his aloof and temperamental predecessor, who exited
only after a prolonged series of difficulties and embarrassments, including the
surfacing of allegations that some officers cheated on promotional tests or
paid for promotions. And for neighborhood groups around Providence, which had
long been clamoring for a more robust commitment to the problem-solving
philosophy of community policing, it was as if their cries had finally been
heard.
Eleven months later, Sullivan continues to get praise for the visibility and
accessibility that's he's demonstrated as interim chief, and for moving the
department toward some overdue changes. Although city councilors and
neighborhood activists criticize the elimination of a separate community
policing unit, Sullivan says plans to integrate the approach throughout the
department remain in sync with the 18-month schedule that he outlined after
becoming chief. As he describes it, the department has already started to
embrace the spirit, if not the letter, of community policing. Overall, "I think
we're headed in the right direction," Sullivan says. "I don't think we're
headed off course."
The interim chief may be right. From his third-floor office in LaSalle Square,
which offers a view, across Interstate 95, of the police department's future
home, an almost completed public safety complex on Federal Hill, it's tempting
to think of a brighter future. Still, to paraphrase Will Rogers, just to be
moving in the right direction isn't a guarantee of success. And even in a
best-case scenario, the department remains at an early stage of transitioning
toward the more responsive brand of policing long sought by residents.
Prignano's exit was forced by a parallel situation: a growing public sense,
exemplified by charges that an officer assaulted a downtown parking lot
attendant in December 2000, that some cops were out of control (in December
2001, a jury found Officer Peter E. Flynn innocent of two felony counts of
assault and convicted him on two misdemeanor charges), and anger within the
department's rank-and-file about the allegations -- which came up during the
federal probe of municipal corruption in Providence -- that promotions may have
been linked to payments or other illicit actions.
Although the department has come to be perceived more favorably on Sullivan's
watch, the resolution of these allegations, which remains the subject of
departmental and state investigations, can't come soon enough for many
officers. Even the promise of a new home to replace the department's dingy
62-year-old headquarters seems trivial in comparison to the battering that
morale has taken in the interim.
As put somewhat blandly by Public Safety Commissioner John Partington, a
former US marshal who oversees the police and fire departments as a civilian,
"A number of things are not under normal conditions in the city." Yet
Partington, who says the police get insufficient credit for their day-to-day
efforts, notes that the department is young -- 64 percent of the department's
469 officers have 14 or fewer years on the force -- and he believes that time
is on their side. "As far as the future of the department," he says, "I want to
get the word to the youngsters -- it's yours to have."
Still, the tough sledding remains to be done. Police departments, under the
best of circumstances, tend to be bureaucratic and highly resistant to change.
It's even more difficult for an interim chief like Sullivan, who, rather than
being able to select his own top commanders, inherited the command staff and
the corresponding culture of his predecessor. With a search committee leading
the process to select three finalists for the permanent chief's position, it
also remains to be seen whether Cianci will select Sullivan -- the only one of
10 candidates to be identified thus far -- for the job within the next month or
two. In effect, despite the interim chief's best efforts, the department
remains largely in a holding pattern.
From a distance, it would seem that Sullivan, 49, has an advantage in landing
the permanent job, particularly because of the lengthy search process and since
out-of-town candidates don't have the same opportunity to locally strut their
stuff. As put by City Council President John J. Lombardi, who assesses the
interim chief's tenure with a B-, "I think it's Colonel Sullivan's to lose. I
think he's really had some opportunities to stand out on some issues." Other
observers, however, point to ongoing morale problems within the department and
rancor over the community policing program in predicting a different outcome.
"I would say that the scales are tipped against him right now," says one
source.
The challenge of moving the department forward only gets more daunting with
the unresolved allegations that some officers bought jobs or cheated their way
into them. As a practice, Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse doesn't comment
on the status of investigations being conducted by his office, but he's not shy
in dissecting the impact of the related charges: "When young officers in the
Providence Police Department look up to their senior officer, to the extent
that they question whether they got there by bribery or cheating, that's hardly
conducive to having confidence in the command structure."
Sullivan has built a measure of goodwill since starting as interim chief in
February 2001, and even the department's most vociferous critics give him some
credit. In October, a Brown University survey showed that 56 percent of city
residents think the police are doing a good or excellent job, with minorities
rating the department more favorably than whites -- a finding that might
reflect the higher prestige associated with law enforcement in the aftermath of
September 11.
Still, Sullivan was caught by surprise when the department was found to be
failing to comply with a state-mandated racial profiling study, and as a
result, the department faced a lawsuit from the unlikely pairing of the
attorney general's office with the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union.
It's this kind of mix that Steven Brown, executive director of the local ACLU
chapter, thinks of as he assesses Sullivan's time as the city's top cop. When
it comes to significant change, "it's something that one has to look beyond a
year to see progress," Brown says. "I can't really say whether there is a
glacial change taking place through the colonel's leadership -- I don't know.
He's said many of the right things, but the difficulties in ensuring compliance
with the DWB [Driving While Black legislation] and continued complaints from
the minority community about police misconduct generally demonstrate that
there's still a long way to go. I'm not sure anyone could address those types
of entrenched problems in a year. The question is, has he laid the groundwork
to changing the culture? That's the real question."
SULLIVAN SEEMED to recognize a relatively narrow window of opportunity when he
got the nod to lead the department, and he quickly set to work, immersing
himself in community meetings and other opportunities to interact with the
public. From the start of his administration, the interim chief says, he
targeted communication, both internally, to assess the concerns of officers and
let them know "it wasn't a top-down management," and externally, to try to
reduce the sense of distrust among some parts of the community and the police.
The March 2001 summit at the Holiday Inn Downtown, in which ranking officers
shared tables with community activists, was part of this outreach.
Intense and with more than a trace of the military bearing left over from his
hitch in the Army, Sullivan has spent almost all of his working life with the
Providence police. The native of South Providence's Glenham Street nonetheless
indicated early in his tenure as interim chief that he'd leave to become a
history teacher if he doesn't get the permanent position.
During the summit, captains and lieutenants were introduced as liaison
officers, their names, pager numbers, and areas of responsibility were made
available, and the nine lieutenants in the patrol bureau were given subsequent
responsibility to remain in weekly contact with leaders of neighborhood watches
and similar groups. Some of these ideas were borrowed from Boston and other
communities that have been in the forefront of building stronger ties between
police and neighborhood leaders.
Details on problems in particular neighborhoods were sent through the chain of
command, and police acted as brokers, Sullivan says, to attract help from the
department of public works or other city departments. "If there was something
we picked up at a meeting, we didn't keep it to ourselves," Sullivan says, and
after being identified, problems were routinely checked at periodic intervals.
"I think we've had pretty good success," he says.
But although Sullivan gets kudos for his presence in the community, the jury
remains out in the minds of neighborhood activists on the effectiveness of his
tactics.
Dorothy McCaffrey, a member of Concerned Citizens of Mount Pleasant, credits
Sullivan with doing a good job, but not without reservation. "He's at all the
neighborhood meetings, and he tries to answer all the questions. I know I could
pick up the phone at any time and call the chief, and so could any other
neighborhood group." Still, McCaffrey, like many other community activists,
misses the kind of focused presence that came with the department's previous
community policing effort. "It was really working where we could notice the
difference and then they stopped," she says.
Sullivan represents progress, says Shakira Abdullah, a board member of the
activist group Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), but his approach
has yet to permeate the department. "As much as I feel that Colonel Sullivan
has come out to community meetings and listened to things that people have
said, I feel that the problems here are not problems that can be changed
overnight or by one man. He is at the top and a lot of our problems exist with
people who tend to enforce the law at the bottom. We don't have very many
interactions with them."
The Reverend Marlowe V.N. Washington, president of the Ministers' Alliance of
Rhode Island, says Sullivan has started the process of change, although he
feels that South Providence, where much of the city's violent crime occurs,
continues to suffer from a lack of adequate police coverage. Sullivan credits
an ad hoc task force with helping to squelch shootings last summer in Mount
Hope and the South Side, but Washington laments the fact that downtown, not the
South Side, is the focus of ongoing task force. "If New York City can do it,
why can't we?" asks Washington, referring to the way in which innovative police
tactics helped to dramatically reduce crime in that city in the '90s. "To me,
it goes back to civic leadership. We're using the wrong methods."
For all the gains that Providence made during the '90s, other observers echo
Washington's view that the police continue to practice an antiquated style of
policing and aren't responsive enough in solving problems. One community
activist, who requested anonymity, feels that the department hasn't matched the
demonstrated desire of a motivated core of residents to work together in
reducing crime. And while it might make sense to replace the separate community
policing unit with a more integrated approach, "It's never been very clearly
spelled out how they're going to do these things that were done by community
police," the activist says.
There's no shortage of other important needs, including an absence of minority
officers above the rank of sergeant with Major Cornel Young Sr. on leave due to
an illness, although the city has prioritized hiring women and minorities among
new recruits. When it comes to the internal review process, Sullivan believes
it can work and a backlog of complaints has been reduced under his leadership.
Critics, however, feel the internal process is fundamentally flawed, and they
continue to put their hope in a civilian review proposal that has made halting
progress, despite some strong support, since being introduced last year in the
city council.
Although it would be unrealistic for these concerns to be cleared within a
year, the unmistakable presence of uniformed officers at Flynn's trial struck
some observers as a thinly veiled form of old-school intimidation. Sullivan
says he would look at such situations on a case-by-case basis, but in this
instance, he says, "the judge didn't have a problem with it. He questioned the
jury if they had a problem, and they said, `No.' " It seems questionable,
though, whether jurors would indicate discomfort in such a case even if they
felt it.
When it comes to the future, Sullivan says, every officer in the department
underwent training in community policing in July, but that the department will
be insufficiently staffed to implement the approach until 45 new officers are
slated to go on the job in late summer. "We said we would not be able to commit
ourselves to the program for 18 months," he says. "Eighteen months will be in
August and we're on schedule." With more formalized standards being used in the
hiring of new officers, it also takes considerable time to select them through
a complex, multi-step progress. "It's not like putting an application out and
you can start three months later," Sullivan says.
Lombardi, the council president, like many of his colleagues, remains
impatient about the addition of new officers, citing the way in which money for
the additional personnel was allocated two years ago, after the carjacking
slayings of college students Amy Shute and Jason Burgeson. "Right now, I think
what we really need to do is to decide once and for all who's going to be the
police chief," Lombardi says, and then get the department fully staffed. While
the new public safety complex represents a symbol of potential rejuvenation for
the department, "Many of the council members are frustrated, upset, and, I
think, justifiably upset," because of concerns about crime in less affluent
neighborhoods and slow response times by police.
Michael Marcoccio, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, didn't return
calls seeking comment, but it's no secret that the rank and file is still
waiting for a shoe to drop when it comes to the state investigation of the
police department. State Representative David N. Cicilline (D-Providence) took
up the topic of internal dissatisfaction -- as well as concerns about neglected
neighborhoods -- in formally unveiling the start of his challenge to Cianci on
Monday, February 11. "Recently, I spoke to a police officer [who] talked about
how demoralized he felt," Cicilline said during his announcement at the Webster
Avenue School in Providence's Silver Lake section. "Despite the fact that he
was qualified, worked hard and played by the rules, he knew he would not be
promoted because of his lack of political influence."
One veteran observer of law enforcement lays part of the blame for problems
within the police department on Cianci, whose trial on federal racketeering
charges is scheduled to start in April. Although Sullivan has done a strong job
in getting into the community, "I think the problem still is that City Hall has
far too much input into policy and until that stops some of these [morale]
problems are going to continue to exist," the source says.
Partington, the public safety commissioner, however, dismisses suggestions of
Cianci's influence as "a myth." Asked how much influence the mayor has within
the department, Sullivan says, "I would say none. He's the mayor. The mayor
doesn't call me to say, `We need to do this, We need to do that,' no. He just
wants to be aware."
For his part, Cianci offers characteristic support for the police, and he
denies interfering in so much as the search being led by a diverse 18-member
panel for the new chief. "The air needs to be cleared and I hope it is
cleared," Cianci says. "If there is anything [wrong] going on over there, it
ought to be ferreted out." On the whole, he says, "I have nothing but
confidence and faith that it's a good police department."
THE PHYSICAL DANGERS of being a Providence police officer were made extremely
clear when a mob attacked and injured Officer Sean Carroll after he responded
to a January 17 shooting on Weybosset Street in downtown Providence. The
assault restarted the debate about two nearby pizzerias, Saki's and Pizza
Queen, that had been operating until 4 a.m., and Cianci briefly closed them
before they reopened and scaled back their closing times to 2 a.m. There's no
doubt that policing, done well, is truly heroic, and Sullivan picks up a
related point in emphasizing a bottom line made all the clearer by September
11. Referring to the selfless bravery demonstrated by the police officers,
firefighters, and EMTs who raced to their deaths inside the World Trade Center,
he says, "That's what a police officer does. That will never change."
And yet some observers, like Lombardi and Providence Journal columnist
David Brussat, question how the long-running problems associated with
late-night crowds loitering near Saki's Pizza on Weybosset Street, have
remained fundamentally unsolved after ebbing and flowing for more than 10
years. In the same way, it was telling that Superior Court Judge Stephen
Fortunato, in backing the right of Saki's to remain open until the License
Board makes a decision, encouraged Cianci to take some tips from former New
York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who presided over that city's celebrated reinvention
of policing.
There's no denying that the Providence police have a particularly difficult
job. The capital city, with a fraction of the state's population, has more than
its share of the mayhem. It's equally true, though, that the citizens of the
city deserve a department of responsive officers and forward looking leaders
who exercise creative thinking and the best spirit of public service in doing
their jobs.
As Brussat noted in a February 7 column, there's a corollary between the
Weybosset Street situation and the difficulties associated with Providence
nightlife that have led police and others to support the concept in recent
years of banning 18-to-21 year olds from bars and clubs. Sullivan still
believes this ban would go a long way to reducing problems, and he says the
department lacks the number of officers necessary to impose a zero-tolerance
approach to the problems associated with nightlife. There's no doubt that
there's far more nightlife in Providence than there was 30 years ago, and this
is part of the city's enhanced appeal. This expansion, though, has yet to be
matched by a sufficient amount of administrative attention. So it goes, it
often seems, as the Mobius strip of unsolved problems comes around again.
Richard Sullivan deserves credit for bringing some positive changes to the
police department, but much more remains to be done. If we're lucky, the
difficulties of recent years will one day be viewed in hindsight as a turning
point.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com..
Issue Date: February 15 - 21, 2002