Body Cameras, No Chokeholds: Bill Calls For Police Reforms In RI

PROVIDENCE, RI — Two Rhode Island lawmakers are calling for sweeping police reforms in the state, aimed at preventing misconduct. The bill calls for changes such as a statewide body camera mandate, more accountability for misconduct and requiring that other officers step in if they witness misconduct.

The bill is named for Rishod K. Gore, the young man at the center of a recent controversy that ended with a Providence police officer's assault conviction.

"The case involving Mr. Rishod Gore is a perfect case study for everything that is wrong with our criminal justice system in 2021," said Rep. José F. Batista, the bill's sponsor in the House of Representatives. "This bill aims to usher in once-in-a-generation reform to our policing practices, while providing to Mr. Gore the opportunity to reclaim the narrative and turn this horrific event into a positive for the community."

The legislation, introduced in both the House and the Senate, also calls for the following reforms:

• Allows for the public release of resulting video footage
• Requires departments to discipline officers found to have used excessive force
• Puts some limits of the types of force police can use against protests and demonstrations
• Allows civil action against police who commit rights violations, or who fail to intervene when they witness other police doing so, and eliminates qualified immunity for such violations
• Requires police to try nonviolent means before force, and places limits on the use of force, like forbidding lethal force to apprehend those suspected of nonviolent or minor offenses
• Bans chokeholds and makes it a felony for officers to use chokeholds, kick suspects in the head, or drive a car as a weapon toward a suspect
• Requires police to intervene and report when other officers commit violations
• Allows the attorney general to file civil action if they suspect police or other public officials are engaging in practices to deprive persons of rights.

"We need to put the 'public' back in 'public oversight,'" said Sen. Jonathon Acosta. "Our tax dollars and the employees they fund should be transparent. Public dollars for public body cams should produce publicly accessible footage."

The lawmakers, who represent Central Falls, Pawtucket and South Providence, said that the systemic problems created by punitive parole and drug laws and harsh policing tactics are among the factors that keep poor people stuck in the cycle of poverty.

"Arrest and joblessness are cyclical, locking families and whole neighborhoods into generational poverty," Batista said. "We have to stop accepting this as something we can’t fix. We can fix this, but it requires the difficult work of acknowledging how and why our systems produce the results they do and reforming those systems from the bottom up."