After days of denial, Mayor Smiley admits it was police officers at the unhoused encampment

"As we continued working to understand what occurred, we were made aware detectives had visited the location on an unrelated assignment..."

After two days of denials, the Administration of Providence Mayor Brett Smiley admitted that it was indeed two Providence Police Detectives who visited an unhoused encampment. For the protection of the people at the encampment, I am withholding the names of the unhoused people and the location of their tents.

According to the four people I spoke to and an outreach worker, two men in hoodies, undercover narcotics detectives with guns and badges, rousted people out of their tents on Monday morning and said to them, “We don't need a warrant. You live in a tent.” Under Rhode Island state law, people living in tents have the same right to a reasonable expectation of privacy - and protection from search and seizure - as a rich East Side donor to Brett Smiley’s re-election campaign might.

After I wrote my story, I received an email from Linday Lague, the Public Information Officer for the Providence Police Department who inaccurately wrote, “…our Narcotics officers (or any officers) were not on site here – please update your story… these are not city officials and no Providence police have been on site today or have provided notices to these individuals. Please ensure to update your story accordingly.”

After more than 48 hours of maintaining that these were not police officers, but also doing no investigation into who these two men might have been, Mayor Smiley’s Administration changed their tune. At around 6pm Patricia Socarras, Director of Communications for Mayor Smiley sent me the following:

“I wanted to close the loop here. When we were made aware of the claim PPD had visited this site on Monday we confirmed that no officers were dispatched and no vacate notices or warrants were served. As we continued working to understand what occurred, we were made aware detectives had visited the location on an unrelated assignment. Providence detectives interacted with individuals at the encampment while looking for a specific person, but did not issue any official citations. The City only issues official vacate notices and dispatches police to a site after individuals living in an encampment have been offered assistance. The City has been aware of this particular encampment and has deployed social services, paid for by the City of Providence, to this site over the past few months. 

“The detectives that visited this encampment on Monday were working on an assignment that is currently under investigation.”

This opens a raft of unresolved issues. As the Rhode Island ACLU stated in a letter to the Mayor and the Chief, “We believe it is essential that you repudiate the officer’s comments and the actions these two individuals took, and engage in steps to ensure that all Providence police officers are well-versed in the requirements of the Homeless Bill of Rights.”

More than that, in talking to the people at the encampment, the two detectives made it clear that they were not looking for a specific person. They were looking for drugs and perhaps worse things. To find these drugs they engaged in harassment, threats of arrest, intimidation, and violations of civil and human rights.

The city has not answered any follow-up questions, such as: Are these two detectives still on duty while the city’s “investigation” is underway? Are the two detectives facing any kind of penalties for their egregious behavior? Who are these detectives, and what kind of record do they have? Will they be protected by the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights [LEOBoR]? Has the Mayor’s policy of evicting encampments and routinely disregarding the rights of unhoused people created an attitude among city employees and police officers that unhoused people don’t matter and are undeserving of being treated like true residents of our city? Will the Mayor now retaliate against the people in this encampment for speaking out, and move to have them evicted, as he has many times in the past?

And finally, is anyone in the city safe when police officers such as these are allowed to treat the most vulnerable among us with such disregard, and with so little knowledge of civil rights and Rhode Island state law?

I have asked, since the beginning of this, for some time to speak to Mayor Smiley and Chief Perez. So far, that request has gone unanswered. Perhaps they will speak to this on a media platform they feel will be more understanding. Stay tuned.