Help End Years of Police Injustice in Rhode Island

Scores of people have been harmed by a small pocket of racist law enforcement officers while others like George Floyd and Briana Taylor have lost their lives. I can’t relate to those tragedies but one agency, Warwick PD, tried to destroy my life, my family and my passion. Its time to address their pattern of injustice against people of color.    

 

I was victimized by Captain Andrew Sullivan of the Warwick Police Department (WPD) on April 29th when he ignored video evidence and repeatedly falsified documents to secure an arrest warrant. Police records show the Captain led the entire effort, bypassing street officers, to continue the department’s history of disproportionately arresting Blacks 6 times higher than non-Blacks. Read here to learn how one judge characterized WPD’s decade of injustice.

I moved my family and left a 20-year career as an educator in Florida to help improve student learning in Rhode Island’s largest district, motivated by a 93-page report by John Hopkins University revealing almost 90% of students below level in reading and math. But there was a greater calling for me: exposing and fighting racism, discrimination and bias by WPD, a department ranked 3rd in Rhode Island for disproportionately arresting Blacks.

 

WPD has behaved in this matter for years with impunity. They take advantage of the fact that minorities often have to rely on over-worked public defenders who encourage plea deals or face losing their jobs since court appearances require time off. WPD thought I was going to go away as well; in fact, in July, just two hours after I informed my 1st lawyer that I was aware they falsified my Arrest Affidavit, they offered me a deal to plead no contest and have my record expunged. I immediately declined because “no contest” meant I did not want to challenge the charges, which is far from the truth.

 

I self-discovered one dishonest police act. After firing my first lawyer (who hid police misconduct), my new lawyer surfaced multiple additional instances of corrupt police behavior in less than 2 months:

I was in shock, my wife just underwent a major operation but I repeatedly declared my innocence and desire to fight. I lost my job, my professional license was suspended, my home was violated and all of this could have been avoided because local NAACP President reached out to the Police Chief twice, prior to my being charged, asking for close review.

 

Even after this, the Captain was promoted to Major and his Lieutenant (who assisted him) was promoted to Captain; they must be held accountable. Please join us in our faith and fight for justice by supporting our efforts. These funds will help conduct deeper analysis and hire necessary investigators/ experts to review arrests in the City of Warwick that led to the over-representation of blacks being arrested within the city where 91% of residents are White. We need to provide enough evidence to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General so they can demand changes. These high-ranking officers are poisoning the officers under their command. Their actions give a bad name to all hard-working law enforcement officers.