Around the time of George Floyd’s murder in the spring of 2020, Providence had its own incident that fueled protests and allegations of police brutality.
Joseph Hanley, a Providence police sergeant, was filmed kicking a Black man, Rishod Gore, as he lay face down on the ground in handcuffs. Providence publicly announced it was firing Sgt. Hanley in July 2020. But the city’s attempt was complicated by a state law called the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights. Hanley used LEOBOR to appeal his termination to a committee of fellow police officers, who gave him his job back this summer after a prolonged disciplinary process.
Rhode Island legislators began revising LEOBOR shortly after the video of Hanley’s conduct sparked outrage in Providence. The legislation passed four years later, in June 2024.
But the revised law — now called the Law Enforcement Officers Due Process Accountability and Transparency Act, or LEODPATA — has struggled to move the needle on accountability or transparency, according to several people involved in its creation and implementation.
Hearing panels still have a majority of police officers
Joseph Penza, an attorney who has defended police officers in misconduct hearings since LEOBOR passed in 1976, said the revised statute is unlikely to influence his cases.
The 2024 law expands the three-person committee of police officers into a five-person committee, with the addition of a retired judge and an attorney.
“I ultimately think that decisions are going to come out pretty much the way they would if the three-man panel was still in effect,” Penza said. “It was all about the optics.”
Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, said other states went further with changing the accountability process for police misconduct. Maryland, for example, completely abolished its law enforcement officers’ bill of rights. Massachusetts and New York set up new state agencies that independently investigate police misconduct.
“Rhode Island just has had a history of not addressing police misconduct in ways that many other states do,” Brown said.
Stephen Rushin, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago, has led a comparative study of LEOBORs across states. He said Rhode Island’s changes are modest in scope.
“A cynical response would be, ‘Well, you still have three officers, therefore it’s always going to tilt the same way,’” Rushin said. “The less cynical view is to say that it’s trying to strike a fair, reasonable balance between competing interests, and I think it may actually result in fair outcomes.”
A lack of public information
Rhode Island’s police reform legislation also promised a new level of transparency in police misconduct cases.
Under LEOBOR, civilian complaints and investigative records were confidential unless an officer was found guilty by a hearing committee or charged in criminal court. Police chiefs were barred from discussing misconduct allegations publicly until those processes played out.
LEODPATA called for the creation of a public website with the names of all officers accused of serious misconduct, the departments they work for, and the nature of their charges.
But 9 months after the law took effect in January, the website still doesn’t exist. LEODPATA provided no funding to create it.
Sid Wordell, executive director of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, said state leaders are now expecting a volunteer board with no paid staff to build the website, update it regularly with new case information, store records from hearings, and make them available for public inspection.
Wordell said he has raised the issue to Gov. Dan McKee, House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, and former senate president Dominick Ruggerio, only to be passed around without a commitment to resolve the issue.
A spokesperson for Gov. McKee did not respond to Wordell’s comments.
The House speaker’s spokesman, Larry Berman, suggested the governor should take the first step to provide funding, though he said the administrative burden “appears to be minimal.”
Wordell said the funding stalemate continues.
“Something has to happen,” Wordell said, “and if it’s the need for us to make this public, that this isn’t happening — I think it’s now time.”
The first cases under the new law are now being heard, with no available public record of the officers’ names or their charges. According to data shared in response to repeated requests by Ocean State Media, there are police officers from Tiverton, Westerly, and two from South Kingstown with cases underway. Their hearings remain closed to the public, just as they were before the reform bill.
