Uprise RI was on hand to video a two hour conversation between Providence and State Law Enforcement and community members held at the CIC Providence District Hall on Wednesday evening. Held in a large circle, the camera was forced to move around a lot to capture the voices of those participating.

Instead of presenting the video, Uprise RI has transcribed what was said, lightly editing for clarity. Speakers whom Uprise RI could identify are noted. Below is the first half of the conversation (the remainder to be posted soon). The event was organized by community activists Pilar McCloud and Kobi Dennis.

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Community Activist and Leader Kobi Dennis: We invited you all here today to continue the conversation. I think that has been long overdue. We started these conversations way before the hashtag era, way before all the different groups started rising and things like that. We started these police and community conversations with state and Providence police in 2010. We started in a room like this and believe me, it wasn’t smooth. There was a lot of tension – screaming and yelling actually. I remember clearly there was a young lady, I don’t remember her name, but I remember her screaming in the officer’s face. Then I remember five meetings later, them sitting next to each other, having a conversation and then five years later having lunch together and doing events together, things like that.

So we’re here today to start these conversations again. We have these conversations because when years pass, misunderstandings and miscommunications happen and I think that’s what’s happening right now. Daily I get calls and emails and text messages and videos to my phone that have to do with police and community involvement. Allegedly, these are problems or complaints. I’ve had people come to my house and say, you better do something about the police and I’ve been able to talk them down, have them file a police report or maybe go talk to the chief or lieutenant in charge.

Knowing the process has helped me a lot personally, and it’s also helped our community. What sparked this meeting is that recently myself and Pilar have been receiving a lot of videos and a lot of calls about State and Providence Police. What I wanted to do, along with all of you, is talk about it and ask, “How can we do better? How can we get our people to do the right thing? As far as filing a police report, what’s the best way to do it?”

I have people tell me that they’re afraid to go to the police station. I have people tell me they don’t know how to fill out a report. I have people to tell me they go online and it doesn’t work or no one follows up with them. So on and so forth. I’m telling you all this for full disclosure so we can better our community and better our relationship. That’s what this is about. I don’t want you guys to think it’s a media ploy. It’s not. There’s nothing behind this. We also plan on coming back to this circle in different parts of town and in different parts of the state.

Community Member Pilar McCloud: Community policing and community go hand in hand. At the end of the day, whether you work here or whether you were born and raised here, we are all community. That’s why I didn’t want there to be any kind of platforms or separate seats. I wanted us all to sit together in a circle because in a circle we’re all unified. We’re all one. If something happens to me, something happens to my brother. Something happens to my brother, something happens to me. It affects us, whether mentally, emotionally, physically, or financially, it’s an effect on us as a whole.

As Kobi said, we get tagged in things. We get instant messaged into things. People saying that incidents allegedly occurred. The one incident that both Kobi and I was tagged in allegedly happened in Providence on the south side with someone who is not here. This gentleman had a past with law enforcement. He had served his time and he is now out. It was a couple of years ago he had his incident. He is now a productive member of society. He has a job. He has his own business. He was driving his work vehicle. And I believe the Jump-Out Boys decided to come towards him. Now he’s pinned where he can’t go forward and they’re facing him. It occurred on a residential street.

The owner of the the house that it occurred in front of that is the person that took the video. The police did the, “Where’s the guns? Where’s the drugs? Get out the vehicle!” thing. They searched the vehicle. They found nothing. There was no crime committed. He was not wanted. He did not look like anyone they were looking for at the time. And when he said, “Why did you stop me?” They said, “Well, you have a past with us.” They got back in their vehicle and they go their way. Now he’s mad, angry, mad and angry. So what ends up happening? Something ends up going up on Facebook, a post with the video. So now everybody can see it. And then what ends up happening? People get tagged.

I spoke to the gentleman for a few days. I told him about tonight in the hopes that he could come and speak on his own behalf. He’s not here. And that’s just one incident that I know about. Kobi knows of another alleged incident. In past times, law enforcement and community may not have gotten along as well as they wish they had on paper. Can we all agree? I don’t want to feel that when I see law enforcement, I should be intimidated, I should be afraid, I want to run. It should not be that way in our community.

Unfortunately that’s the community’s reaction. That is not the community’s fault, no more than it is law enforcement’s fault. But when the perception is that law enforcement is coming and things are going to go left, not in a smooth, transactional matter, people get scared and rightfully so. Then they may act in a manner that may not do them any benefit.

Kobi Dennis: So instead of talking about a particular incident, maybe one of either the state or Providence Police representatives could talk about what happens with these stops. I would like someone to explain, out loud, what happens and what is the reason for these stops.

Providence Police Major Kevin Lanni: Well, on that particular stop, I actually had spoken with that person. The Nonviolence Institute was nice enough to put us together. [Providence Police Community Relations and Diversion Services Major] Michael Stevens joined me and we had a conversation about some of his concerns about the stop, about how he was treated. And we listen to him and he’s currently in the process of filing a complaint and getting people to support him in that. We weren’t trying to deter him from doing that. What I asked of him was that even though he had a bad situation with this officer, that he doesn’t generalize the Providence Police Department or the State Police and the good work we do in the community with the Institute and many other partners. He was receptive to that.

So as far as just that initial complaint, that will have to play out against the officer or officers with Providence and State through the mechanisms we have in place. As far as what we do in the community, when it comes to those type of stops, we balance public safety with the rising gun violence we see in our communities in the summer months and proactive police officers are trying to use probable cause to make arrests and minimize gun violence in our city. A lot of times that type of police activity comes to neighborhoods where the crime violence is higher due to calls for guns, calls for shootings, calls for shots fired. So you’ll see an increased level of activity. We can talk about that, but that’s really a data driven process. We put our resources in places where we can have the biggest impact on crime and violence.

Community Attorney Shannah Kurland: I wanted to say something. I live on Lennox Avenue. Your [police] cars go flying up and down our street. I wanted to say something upbeat but it’s not going to happen because honestly, I think why I’m here is because I am tired of having to figure out what people are supposed to do with their pain. The amount of pain that people in the community, that young Black people go through at the hands of the police, what are they supposed to do with that? We don’t want them to get mad and fight with each other, but there’s so much pain at what you all are doing to them every single day. And I’m just trying to learn how to understand, from people’s stories, what it is we’re supposed to do about that? To stop it, not to change it, not to reform it, but to stop that. I talked to three generations of one family this week about it, who had all gone through it recently. So yeah, I want to know what we’re going to do to stop it.

Kobi Dennis: I didn’t see her over there but when I said Pilar [McCloud] and I probably get the most messages on social media about police involvement with the community, Shannah Kurland gets the most for sure. Maybe because of her profession, but also because of how hard she goes for the people.

We get messages all the time about police involvement. Sometimes there’s video attached, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes it’s a mom screaming on the phone at me. Sometimes it’s just a bunch of angry words. And all I want to really know what she asked. Can you guys give us some suggestions on how we can decrease some of the pain in the communities from some of what I would consider unlawful car stops? When you get pulled over, and this has happened to me, so I’m not even going to talk about someone else, when you get pulled over and you get yelled at and screamed at and asked where the guns are and all that, like, where do we go from there? What are some suggestions that you guys have? Or any community members have? Where do you go from there? And how do you heal? How do you heal a community when that’s happening?

Pilar McCloud: And if I could just add something on to what Kobi said, if I am a young person and I am new to driving and I get stopped and I’ve never had any interaction with law enforcement ever and that is my first interaction. – Where am I supposed to go after that?

Major Kevin Lanni: We work very hard with the community. This is a great forum to have these conversations and engage with the community and understand what it is that we are doing. Where we could do better where we could improve and what their issues are with the police. In our training, in our curriculum at the academy, we train our officers to be respectful when they have a car stop, to use probable cause. These conversations and involving the community in our training and in the development of our officers and recruiting our inner city youth will be important for us to better the future. I hope that’s lsomething that satisfies a little bit of your statement.

Community Member April Brown: I think for me, that’s helpful as an opening, but it doesn’t really get to the crux of it. I grew up in a space where you were supposed to be able to trust police officers. Officer Friendly came to my school and it was this thing, right? This idea that there was an amount of care that police had for me and the people I love. And that is not actually true. I had someone who works for me tell me that they had a police interaction and they were arrested and subsequently released. This was their first time in an interaction like this and what they said to me was what I am clear: These people don’t have care for me. They don’t know how to hold me. They don’t know how to keep me safe. And that’s the reality. I’ve not had an interaction with the police. But I do know that my brothers have, this person who works for me has. There’s a disconnect when you can talk about public safety and yet the public doesn’t feel safe and doesn’t feel in your care.

Major Kevin Lanni: I respect what you’re saying about police and transparency and trust. We try to hire emotionally intelligent officers and train them so they are empathetic to the community they serve. I’m sorry if a lot of people have had bad experiences with the police, but those are the ones we hear about the most. Most interactions with the community and the police are positive or they don’t have a bad or negative outcome. We’ve done a lot over the past several years to increase transparency, whether it’s body worn cameras or conversations like this or our online way that someone can file a complaint against an officer.

So I think we are getting better. Obviously we all could get better at what we do. We’re open to the discussion. We’re open to making improvements and we’re happy to engage. But I, I feel that the department is moving in the right direction when it comes to trust and transparency in the community and engaging young people in the community, through the programs that you all thankfully invite us to and building that relationship early on so the officers get to know the people in our community and the community gets to know their officers.

Providence Police Officer: For the purpose of discussion amongst our group, how many people here, specifically, individually, not through social media, not through somebody told me, have had a negative experience with police in Rhode Island?

To the surprise of law enforcement in the room, all but five hands were raised in a room of 45 people, including the hands of some members of law enforcement.

Providence Police Officer: Obviously there is work to be done, right? But our job, 90% of the time, is responding to some type of a, I’m going to say, negative action. Now there are times where sometimes it is proactive, like the example we were talking about and it’s initiated by an officer, but how many of those interactions were initiated through an incident where we show up? And now we, as an officer, are tasked with controlling a scene, [managing] emotions, trying to control other people’s responses and things of that.

Community Member Kira Wills: I just wanna say, respectfully, that apologies and change of direction are not enough at this point. There needs to be constant collaboration and constant collaboration looks like meeting people where they are and not just at community forums such as this. It means engaging them earlier and consistently and it means engaging them on levels that might not have been done previously. It means recognizing that individuals such as the people in this room, have expertise and knowledge of social wellbeing. We want to have input on how we are policed, not how we are protected, which is a different element, but how we are policed. Those are the kinds of conversations that need to happen.

And not just as a conversation. It should happen as an action step. We have many people in this room who work in high anxiety situations every day and their first step forward is not anger. Their first step forward is not anticipation of error. Their first step forward is: I see a human, how do I relate to this human, protecting myself and them? That is something that needs to be expanded within police departments, especially within the Providence Police Department. Having continual conversations with us has to begin now, not in the next mayoral race, now. Officers in the ranks need to start speaking up about having done that also.

Providence Police Officer: What are some examples you have that we can take back with us? Because it’s easy to say, but it’s not always easy to do when our jobs are forever going to be different.

April Brown: Specifically the young person who I was talking about, they were arrested and the young person asked, “Do you know why I’ve been arrested?” And the officer responded, “I don’t know.” That’s a disconnect. Their charge was disorderly conduct, and there was no disorderly conduct. They were simply arrested. The trauma of that interaction is going to stay with that young person forever. I know that none of you were there, but the point of it is that that’s what Shannah’s talking about. That’s someone who I’m gonna have to work with. And we’re gonna talk about it…

Providence Police Officer: But what was the behavior of that [young person]… ?

The room erupted in an uproar.

“That’s like asking a rape victim what she was wearing,” said one person. “Oh no,” said another.

Kobi Dennis had to wrangle the conversation back on course.

Providence Police Community Relations and Diversion Services Major Michael Stevens: I got stopped by the cops, they took me out of the car. Same thing. Listen, I got 45 nieces and nephews. I’ve lived in the city of Providence all my life. My brother Benny, my brother Tom, we all talk about it. I talk to my nephew about it. I ask them, “What can we do to get better at respecting the police officer? What can we do? And what can they do to get better at respecting the residents of the city? It goes both ways.

The number one thing that we all could teach our kids and I’m going to teach my son, is when they pull you over, follow what they ask you to do, because they’re taping. Everything’s being taped. If something goes wrong, they’re able to go back to the body camera. And we go back to the body cam and see what they did wrong. But we have to teach our young men and women to just follow what they are asked to do. Because what happens is, when we don’t follow directions and we argue with them, that’s when it gets ugly. Now they start pulling people out of cars and I don’t want that. I want our kids to know that if you did nothing wrong, that if you have no record, just follow what they ask you do. That’s that’s all I just want to say.

Community Member Damon Howard: Mike, I get what you’re saying, but a lot of times, when you do follow orders, you’re still treated with disrespect. My problem is, and I think a lot of people’s problem is, we have a problem with the stop and the disrespect that we’re getting when we get stopped. And the accountability afterwards. Time and time again, we see or hear something happen and [the police officer]’s not being held accountable. We know sometimes and officer’s been fired, but the majority of the time officers are not being held accountable after the fact. That’s where my problem is.

Major Kevin Lanni: A lot of times though, they are held accountable. If there’s a complaint…

Damon Howard: The community doesn’t hear about that…

Major Kevin Lanni: That’s what I was going to say. The issue may be on our part, by not communicating that to the public. There are times when police do things wrong, especially if it’s a verbal situation where they treat someone disrespectful and they are held accountable internally, but it isn’t communicated to people and that’s something we need to do a better job on.

Damon Howard: What about if I say that I’ve known an officer with a bad track record for over 20 years, he’s still on the force. That’s not being held accountable.

Unknown woman: They get promoted!

Damon Howard: And if we know in the community, the officers know that work with him. So how’s this guy, after 20 years, still continuing to work when he has several accusations and several situations? It’s not one or two little incidents. We’re having problems where officers spend 10 years, 15 years on a force with a track record. That’s not good. You say that when you’re pulled over to be respectful and do what they want but if you keep being treated bad year after year and no one s held accountable, you’re already on edge because you feel that you are about to get the same situation.

State Representative Anastasia Williams: First and foremost, what’s lacking in the police department is trust. There is absolutely no trust towards the police department. That culture needs to be revamped, needs to be purged, needs to be changed. The community always gets the blame for what actions, the bad Jump-Out Boys do. One size doesn’t fit all. But unfortunately that’s exactly what is happening. One bad cop makes all of you, whether you’re good or bad, look bad. So we are not going to trust you. I know certain officers I trust but there are many that I don’t and with good reasons. You’re speaking as though there is a good relationship happening between the community and law enforcement and there isn’t any.

April mentioned this “Officer Friendly.” When you saw Officer Friendly come in the neighborhood, he respected you and everybody in the community. It was the same the other way around. But now, as soon as you see an officer in your community, you are making sure that there’s a door you can run into or you somebody’s got your back because the fear is the police are going to pick on somebody. And as David said, there’s no accountability. There’s no check and balances. I’m gonna say it like it is: You cover for each other. So there’s no trust. There is absolutely no trust.

Major Kevin Lanni: I would disagree. I just disagree with that personally, that there’s no trust and that no one is held accountable. I can’t see that as an accurate statement in law enforcement and in our relationship with the community, I don’t believe that nobody trusts the police. I don’t believe that’s the situation.

Kobi Dennis: I’d love the to hear the State Police response to the statement about no trust.

Representative Williams: Speak truth. Don’t dress it up. That’s the disheartening part of it. I leave here thinking they didn’t want to be honest. They didn’t want to be transparent. If you want to make changes and move forward, you better be honest. You need to change my mind, my outlook on you because I’m going to continue to tell the young Black and brown boys and girls up in our community don’t trust them, watch out for them.

Kobi Dennis: That’s a great point. If you look around this room, the people in here represent thousands of young people, especially Black and brown people because of the work that we do in the community. It’s either going to be a vicious cycle of we don’t trust the police, we don’t like the police, or it can be we had a great conversation with a bunch of great law enforcement folks. And they were honest. We didn’t like everything they said, but they were honest.

State Police Captain Kenneth Jones: About two years ago when we had civil unrest and rioting – I had never seen anything like it. I had never felt the hate for the profession that I belong to. And I asked myself, “What got us to this point?” It bothers me. It bothers me that there are members of the community who have hatred for this profession. So my, my question is what can I do? What can I do to change that perception? I know there’s not a cure for this. I know there’s no silver bullet. There’s nothing that we can do other than to have meaningful dialogue to show that we care. And that’s one person at a time. I honestly don’t know how we can fix it, but it starts with having conversations like we’re having today.

Community Member Zara Salmon: Just as a question, do you all understand the 13th amendment, what your job entails for the officers in the room?

Major Kevin Lanni: We’re taught constitutional law in the academy. They’re updated on training all the time about all the amendments and the rights of people in the community, and people that visit our city.

Representative Williams: Can you answer the question that she just asked? Repeat the question.

Zara Salmon: Per the 13th amendment, do you understand what your job entails? The fact that all the officers are hesitating very much worries me. The fact that community members understand what the 13th amendment entails, but the police don’t…

Representative Williams: It’s okay to say I don’t know.

Major Kevin Lanni: We teach our officers to protect the public, and follow the law and their training. So we may not be versed in every constitutional amendments, but…

Zara Salmon: This one is a very important one. So I’m going to read it to you: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime where the party shall have been dually convicted, shall exist within the United States of America or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” I was a political science and English major. What that means is that your job legally enslaves people in America.

Zara Salmon: You just asked the question, “What can you do to change that?” After watching that documentary, as a political science major, that scares me. The fact that we went from 300,000 people incarcerated – enslaved – in 1980, and then we see a rise in private prisons and a rise in over policing due to drugs. Also in the cannabis industry, it’s kind of insulting to see that the largest dispensary here in Rhode Island is run by a former cop, the same cop who was enslaving so many people for the same substance. It’s important for you all to know that you all have the power to enslave people. Now that you are equipped with that information, is there anything that you will do differently knowing that you have the power to enslave people in 2022?

Major Kevin Lanni: The power to arrest?

Zara Salmon: No, the power to enslave, per the 13th Amendment. This is why you should be very well versed on that law.

Major Kevin Lanni: I don’t know if I can give you the answer you’re looking for on that.

Zara Salmon: That’s okay. The reason why I bring this up is that community members like Anastasia, Pilar, we know this is in the law. There is a slavery loophole. I highly recommend the documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay. The fact that the community knows this, and you all don’t, and you’ve worked on the police force for over 20 years, that is concerning. And this is why constituents are scared – because you all do not understand the power that you hold.

Community Member Al Williams: I’ve been pulled over a couple of times. I reached out to State Police. I reached out Providence Police. It was fine because I had relationships, right? I was able to address my problem and it got addressed. But the main thing is perception. When I got pulled over by the State Police and the Providence Police, initially there was, it was a rough scenario. Then dialogue happened I had deescalated. They didn’t deescalate. What if I was a young kid didn’t know how to interact, to verbally have a conversation with an officer? This could have turned bad.

And at one point I literally felt threatened as a Black man, not as a citizen, but as a Black man, a bald Black man with tattoos. But I was able to deescalate the perception. I have law enforcement, family, friends, and so forth so I do not perceive all law enforcement as bad, but there are some bad apples. When you pull over someone who looks like me, especially a young person, that perception, from a police standpoint, has to change.

Providence Police Officer Barros: I understand all you guys. I agree. I’ve been there too. I understand there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m going to be blunt. I’m going to tell you guys exactly how I do it. When I stop anybody, I’m not stopping because of the skin color, because I don’t want to feel that I’m doing to them what they did to me. I stop when I have probable cause and I do my job respectfully until the line is crossed because I also got to make it home. Like all of us do, we got to go home.

Al Williams: And we do too.

Officer Barros: Exactly. So I police the way I was treated. We are all different and I hope that I don’t get judged as a police officer, like an individual that just disrespected or mistreated another individual at a car stop. We are all different. We all police different. We don’t think the same. So I don’t like to be judged…

Shannah Kurland: Would you snitch?

Officer Barros: I tell the truth. I will tell the truth. I’m not going to hide the truth, but I don’t want to be judged. Like another officer that did something bad or disrespected or racially profiled somebody. I’m not gonna do that because that was done to me. I worked the southside of Providence, I worked the east side of Providence. I’ve been a Jump Out. I know how it goes.

Representative Williams: You were a Jump Out Boy?

Note: The Jump-Out Boys is the name given to the Providence Police Gun Task Force, which has long been criticized for using excessive force, racial profiling and unnecessary violence while patrolling.

Officer Barros: A long time ago. I’m old.

Representative Williams: A long time ago still was bad. If you were there then you see could all of the trials and tribulations that were going on. Did you ever speak up on that?

Officer Barros: I always tell the truth.

Shannah Kurland: Did you proactively report? You know, you saw stuff, you were jumping out.

Officer Barros: I’m not going to get into that. A lot of the stuff that you’re asking is above my pay grade…

Shannah Kurland: Would you, if you saw something and nobody asked you about it, because you don’t need to talk about it, would you say something? Yes or no? It’s easy.

Officer Barros: I will say the truth.

Shannah Kurland: Okay. But will you volunteer any?

Kobi Dennis: A lot of times the officers won’t speak up because they’re outranked, but they’re just community people right now. I would hope that you all could speak up freely, because that’s what this is about. We don’t want just a white shirt speaking or what have you, they’re not the ones always in the streets.

Representative Williams: They came from a past where things were happening. They witnessed and and took part of this stuff. So now we are having this conversation and we are asking them to be honest and transparent. They saw, they heard and they participated in things that we are talking about that need to be corrected. I know we can’t force anybody to say. What I’m looking for is honesty and I’m not hearing that. We need to start by having that something is about to happen in a good way. I want a second forum so that others can take part and be witness to the change that’s coming before us. But I’m not seeing that, I’m not feeling that and am I hearing that. I’m hearing more of, “I once was, but now I am [different] and let’s do something about it.” But let’s talk about the problem and the solution as they were.

Major Kevin Lanni: Of course officers see things other officers do and don’t agree with and think they’re wrong over the course of their career. It would be unrealistic to think that doesn’t happen. I do believe there are times when officers point out a behavior that’s that’s not appropriate for the situation and let supervisors know, knowing that it’s addressed internally. So yes, that does happen. And of course officers come across behavior that they wouldn’t participate in. It may not be criminal behavior, but it may be something that they’re not comfortable with. So I’d like to think we police ourselves in that respect.

Unidentified Woman Community Member: Our point in coming here is to build trust now. We keep going back to what happened in the past. We need to trust everybody. I don’t trust people in my community. You want us to trust the police, but if you don’t trust also people in the community, how can we come together? Our goal is for our kids to grow up trusting our community and our policemen. I have a seven year old nephew who I’m raising. He loves the police. I don’t tell him to not trust them because we have to let our children know you can trust them. They haven’t had a bad experience. The majority of our children haven’t had a bad experience with our police. So why would we tarnish their mind to say that they’re bad people.

We’re in a community trying to work with our policemen, regardless of where they’re from, that’s how we build trust. We can’t run around speaking negative about what happened in the past there’s there’s mayors, representatives, cultural people, senators that we have not trusted that have had bad track records, but we’re not going to keep running around pointing fingers saying that person’s bad, but that person’s good. That’s not what we are here for. Everyone keeps beating on the police because of what has happened in the past. We’ve got to start fresh. Everyone deserves a new beginning, correct? We all did something wrong in our lives. All of us.

Kobi Dennis: Everyone’s here for different reasons. We’re all not here for the same reason. I don’t want to put a blanket statement on why we’re all here. [That said,] I don’t want to forget the past, actually. There’s a lot of things that happened in the past that I’m still not happy about. I want to talk. This is part of their job. They can take it.

Community Member Helena Baskervilles Dukes: When I first started going to police forums, I had a huge dislike for the police. I’m a female. I’d been pulled over a number of times throughout my life. And it was racial profiling or a cop was trying to hit on me, or I’m with my husband, then boyfriend. “Oh, you look familiar” or “because we had tinted windows.” Lies, lies, lies.

Cops have to understand that we’re people too. At a couple of forums I tell the new recruits that when you go out, you need to make sure you have a relationship in the areas you are serving. What I do on the east side is I make sure I know who the Lieutenant is. When I see a new cop riding around, I stop and say, “Hey, my name is Helen. Who are you?” Because that’s their job. One thing I have noticed, because our neighborhood is fully gentrified, I see cops get out and talk to the white people, but they won’t get out and introduce themselves to the community.

Culturally, we will identify with one another, but the police officer’s job is not to culturally identify with police. Your job is to be out there and know the community because when you have a relationship with someone and you know someone, you’re less likely to judge them. We want to trust police officers. My daughter was nine or 10 or so when we were in the car and I got pulled over by the Jump-Out Boys. They just pulled me over. They looked, “Oh, we’re good.” And my daughter’s like, “What did you do, mom? What did you do?” And I said, “I did nothing.” She said, “Well, why did they pull us over?” She said, “I’m afraid.” Just that simple interaction. I got no apology, no nothing. So I think when we talk about what to do, this is a great start, but it has to continue.

You also have to know your community. I don’t care if you’re doing it for one day or you’re doing it for one month or two years, you got to know your community. And it’s hard. You cannot expect us to trust you after a history of the atrocities that were committed against our people. It’s not going to happen. These young kids see these videos. They’re tired, they’re traumatized. So when they see you, they’re immediately hostile because they’re afraid for themselves. I say take a look at them and understand where they’re coming from. It’s going to take time because they already don’t like you. So whatever you’re going to do, it’s going to be hostile. You have to understand that these kids are not like us.

Community Member Eugene Monteiro: The first thing, I want to address is that you mentioned that you don’t want to be judged. And I agree with that. Because I am absolutely not anti-police. I am very pro standards, meaning that whatever the best practice is for your industry, that’s what I’m hoping to see. That’s what is going to keep me safe. The problem is that I’m judged. I’m judged based on where I’m at, what I drive, whatever it is. I’ve been in situations where I’m driving and I see the cop pass and the cop looks over. The cop turns quickly, pull me over. I ain’t doing nothing, but it doesn’t matter. Now 25, 30 minutes of me sitting in my car, just for them to let me go and tell me to stay out of trouble. I have grandkids in the car and they’re sitting, ducking in the back of the car for no reason. That’s shameful. I’m trying to explain that it’s okay.

We’ve talked about having a personal story. That’s a personal story that happened to me. The other thing to touch on is, “Would you say something?” Sadly in Providence the answer is, “No.” I guarantee that if you took time and did some research into how many use of force documents were filed with an arrest? I guarantee that number is very close to zero. I guarantee it. I can tell you from personal experience, looking at some of this stuff that there are obvious situations where there was no way the other police officers didn’t see what happened and there was absolutely nothing written.

You look at that recent report and it’s very clear that report was written before anyone knew that there was a video. What I was most upset with is that the individuals involved were two white shirts, two supervisors. They’re the ones that should be critiquing that, right? They’re the ones that should be questioned, like what happened and asking those difficult questions to make sure that the patrol officers are doing the right thing.

Diana Garlington: I respect what the young lady said in the back about not living in the past with what’s going on with police officers. So I’m going to give you something that’s happening in the present. It also reflects on behaviors and perception. On June 18th, myself and my children and my granddaughters were car accident. An officer here asked about another incident, “What was his behavior?” Well, I’m 53 years old and I was brought up by parents who lived in the south. And I still say, “yes ma’am, no ma’am.” This officer immediately came over to my car and started yelling at me and my children to get in the car, sit down and wait until I tell you to speak. Mind you, the female that hit us was white. So why was it that I was automatically scolded and yelled at and told to get in my car until she spoke up and admitted the accident was her fault? So when you ask, “What was the behavior that alarms me?” I’m 53 years old. What was my behavior?

Michael Stevens: This is a good conversation. I swear is really good. It’s a conversation that’s hitting home on certain things. It’s an uncomfortable conversation. I want to tell you something real quick because I have another community meeting I have to go to. I want to say this: I’ve been riding with a police officer every night, nine to 11, nine to two in the morning. I just wanted tell just a quick story. We go to a a disturbance where a young Black woman got punched in the face by her boyfriend. Got punched in the face and he threw her clothes out in the street, threw all clothes on the street.

It was me, a Black woman officer, Officer Mike and another officer there and the woman was crying. Mike was asking her for her ID so he could understand who she was. He was asking for ID. He went into her pocketbook,, just see her ID, just help her out. Trying to help her because she’s like, going crazy. She starts calling every name of the book. “You black effin’ this, you go back to your own country.” This young Black lady’s calling him every single name of the book, her clothes on the ground. This young black officer and I’m thinking, this young officer, like my son, that could be my son.

Mike’s like, listen, I’m trying to help you. He says, “What do you need?” She says, “I need you to pick up my clothes.” So he puts on gloves and the other officer puts on gloves and starts picking up her clothes. And she said to him, “I don’t want you picking up my clothes. I want that n— to pick up my clothes.” She said that to a young Black officer.

I’m just telling a story. I want those young Black men who want to be police officers who grew up in the city of Providence, to be polices officers and be able to be respected by our own. That’s all I want. I went home and my mom’s 80 something years old. I sat on the porch with my mom. She said, “Mike, don’t forget. When they see so many things that happen in their lifetime and they see their families and people don’t have respect for the police, that’s what they get.”

That young officer. I got in a car with him and you know what I said? “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know if I could have done that. Because me, as the guy that I am, I probably would’ve took her down for disorderly conduct the way she was calling me names. But that Black officer sat there and he said to me, “It happens to me all the time.”

To be continued…