Body cam footage of Woonsocket Mayor's homeless encampment raid released
“The Governor’s out here cleaning up the streets.”
Per my Access to Public Records Act [APRA] request the Woonsocket Police Department released all the videos about the arrest of two men experiencing homelessness on drug and weapons charges during an encampment “tour” organized by Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt that included Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee and members of his staff, Secretary of Housing Stefan Pryor and members of his staff, and three members of the Woonsocket City Council, and Woonsocket City Councilmembers Christopher Beauchamp, Scott McGee, and Brian Thompson. A full list of the estimated 15 people who participated in the tour has not been released. [Woonsocket Mayor leads encampment raid with Governor McKee in tow]
In the police report, written by Officer Robert Frye, I learned and reported that Woonsocket Police Department detectives were aware of the possible presence of guns at the encampment Mayor Baldelli-Hunt invited Governor McKee to. In fact, it seems that the Mayor, some of her staff members, and the police officers assigned to protect the members of the tour group were the only people on the tour who knew that guns might be present.
The event is notable because of the presence of the Governor, whose staff told me that he would never have been allowed on the tour if his security detail knew there was a possibility of guns being present. [Governor McKee breaks silence on Woonsocket encampment visits]
The body-worn camera footage is presented below, in full, exactly as I received it. Strangely, the faces of elected public officials and their staff were blurred by the Woonsocket Police Department before releasing the video. I am in the process of appealing this to the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office because there is no reason to obscure the identities of the elected officials [or their staff members] who were on this tour. Some of the supplied footage is incomplete. Other officers may have run their cameras, but that footage has not been released.
After each video is some notes I took during my viewing of them.
Having viewed all the videos several times, having read the police report, and having interviewed, on and off the record many people present at the event, my overall impression is that members of the Woonsocket Police Department knew about the guns they found well in advance. Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt knew about the guns and arranged the “tour” so that the police could arrest the men in the presence of the Governor, in an effort to paint all homeless people as a threat to public safety, thereby justifying her stance of raiding and bulldozing encampments.
Body-worn camera footage of Officer E. Doura; 3:43 pm, September 29, 2023:
This video has been edited. When a body-worn camera is activated, there is a 30-second delay before sound comes on. This video starts with the video and audio both in process, meaning there is unreleased footage from earlier in the arrest.
Officer Doura’s released footage starts after the two suspects, 53-year-old Junior Martinez and 30-year-old Richard Bittner have been placed under arrest and handcuffed but before the police “discovered” the presence of unregistered handguns. The first thing you might notice is that the faces of police officers and the two suspects are not blurred out, but at 1m4s1 there is a man at the scene whose face is blurred out. The identity of this man is unknown.
After Martines is brought to the police car [7m32s], Officer Doura receives a message that a gun was found “right where the two men were standing. At 7m56s Officer Doura tells the officer that the “white kid” is the one who “had the handgun maybe.”
As Officer Doura walks back to the site of the arrest [8m7s] he approaches a man he calls “Chief.” This is not Woonsocket Police Chief Thomas Oates. Oates was not present at this “tour.” Instead, this appears to be Michael L.A. Houle, the former Chief of Woonsocket Police. Houle currently serves as Woonsocket’s Director of Human Services and chairs the Woonsocket Housing Authority.
“Okay,” responds Houle.
“Chief did you hear that? They found a loaded handgun too,” says Officer Doura. Standing nearby when Officer Doura drops this piece of information is Governor McKee. In the photos below are the single frames or two where Houle and Governor McKee can be seen unblurred.
[Correction: In an earlier version, I incorrectly identified the man in red as “Chief.”]
At 8m17s we see Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt. Officer Doura stops, perhaps to speak to the Mayor, but she is engaged in conversation with unnamed people with blurred-out faces.
Officer Doura heads back to the site of the arrest [9m39s] where two officers, Officer Robert Frye [who authored the police report] and one identified as a “Captain” are conducting a search. Neither Frye nor the Captain have activated their body-worn cameras.
“Bags full of handguns?” asks Officer Doura.
“Yeah,” said Officer Frye, adding later, “there’s real guns down here.”
Apparently, the police had confiscated BB guns during a previous visit to this encampment.
“That’s what he said,” says Officer Frye, possibly referring to information given to the police by an informant. “The person said there was a revolver…”
At 12m58s Officer Frye asks the Captain, “With your intel, can we charge Junior with the guns?”
At 13m7s Officer Frye says, jokingly, “Make sure you thank the Governor for me.” Everyone chuckles. “The Governor’s out here cleaning up the streets.”
After the guns were found, the Governor and other elected officials “did a quick exit,” notes the Captain.
“Imagine if someone came down here and fucking got killed by these assholes?” asks Officer Frye at 14m50s.
Body-worn camera footage of Officer T. Young; 3:45 pm, September 29, 2023:
The next two videos are complete, but in both videos the officers at some point turn off their audio, making it impossible to know what was being said around them. The officers in these videos were responding to calls to transport the suspects back to the Woonsocket Police Department Headquarters for processing.
At 6m50s Officer Young is approached by a man who I believe is Woonsocket Public Safety Director Eugene Jalette.
Jalette: How's it going?
Officer Young: Well, we got two I guess. I'm just here for transport but now it sounds like they might have picked up a handgun from where this kid was sitting, a ghost gun with no serial.
Jalette: You're kidding me.
Officer Young: They're down there right now grabbing it. So things are uh, the plot thickens.
Jalette [sarcastically]: It's a good thing the Governor was down there...
At 7m21s, Officer Jalette deactivates the audio on his boy-worn camera and doesn’t reactivate it for 8 minutes, only to turn it off again a minute later for an additional 8 minutes or so.
During the second audio blackout, at 18m44s, we are treated to this scene of Officer Frye in conversation with Mayor Baldelli-Hunt. With no audio, it is impossible to know what was being said.
At 29m26s, there is one final bit of unmuted video. As Officer Young gets out of his car at the station, a police officer in another car rolls down his window and asks, “Didn't we just go down there recently looking for guns?”
Officer Young holds up a finger to silence the other officer and mutes the audio.
Body-worn camera footage of Officer J. Rinfrette; 3:48 pm, September 29, 2023:
As Officer Rinfrette walks towards his superior officers, we can hear Mayor Baldelli-Hunt finishing a conversation [1m14s] with the ominous words, “…out of Rhode Island.”
At 13m14s, Officer Rinfrette has a brief conversation with an unidentified man, possibly a former police Officer he calls “Sir.”
“How you doing, Sir?” asks Rinfrette.
“Glad I'm retired,” replies “Sir.” “Another year, six to eight months, I'm done.”
At 17m28s, Officer Frye, who authored the police report and conducted the search that revealed the two handguns, approached Officer Rinfrette.
“They're here for some political bullshit with the Governor and all that which I don't give a fuck about,” says Officer Frye, who then notices that Officer Rinfrette had his body-worn camera activated. “Oh!” says Officer Frye, “Just mute it.”
“Yeah, sorry",” says Officer Rinfrette.
The rest of Officer Rinfrette’s video is silent.
The final two videos are of Officers Murray and Derham searching the car of one of the two men arrested at the encampment.
Body-worn camera footage of Officer S. Murray; 5:37 pm, September 29, 2023:
Body-worn camera footage of Officer M. Derham; 5:37 pm, September 29, 2023:
1 minute, 4 seconds into the video. All references to the time code in the videos will follow this pattern.