The city of Providence is auditing police records to determine if the Providence Police Department is intentionally misrepresenting and underreporting local crime.
Additionally, the City Council plans to create a Public Safety Committee to look into the problem.
Ward 7 City Councilman John Igliozzi spoke out last year on the alleged misrepresentation of crime, triggering the city's investigation. Though Igliozzi and City Council President John Lombardi first voiced their concerns last June, the issue became prominent this year.
Igliozzi said several incidents have come to council members' attention that indicate police officers may have inappropriately reported crimes as less serious offenses than they actually were. He added that the PPD has not yet satisfied the council's concerns.
He cited an assault in October when two aides to Gov. Don Carcieri '65, Jeffrey Britt and Jeffrey Grybowski, were beaten so badly that Britt went into a coma and suffered three broken bones in his face. The assailants were charged with misdemeanors instead of felony assault.
"That to me was very peculiar," Igliozzi said. "A heinous assault should have been charged to the full extent of the law," he said.
Lombardi also expressed concern regarding that particular incident, saying he also believes the assailants should have been charged with felonies.
"In most jurisdictions the police usually charge to the maximum," he said. For example, if a victim says she has been sexually assaulted, police charge the suspect with sexual assault, not simple assault.
"If you want to negotiate or cut a deal, that's the Attorney General's job," he said.
"I'm not saying (downgrading of crimes) is happening, but if it is, it goes from a felony to a misdemeanor," Lombardi said.
But he noted, "These are very thin-iced waters that we're walking on. You run the risk of offending rank-and-file police officers."
Lombardi called for a "full-blown audit for the last three years" of crime records, saying the dispatchers who receive emergency calls may have a better sense of how much crime is actually occurring in Providence.
But James Lombardi, the city's internal auditor, said tracing every single emergency call would be a "tremendous task."
"In early January, stats came out and the stats showed that crime was going up. That was consistent with what the council was saying," he said, adding that he saw no need to begin auditing immediately.
Since the PPD only began using a program that tracks changes in a reported crime in August, Lombardi said he would be able to do a more thorough job if he waited four to six months, anyway.
"But then it blew up and Igliozzi went public," Lombardi said.
Lombardi said he would like more direction from the council in conducting his audit and anticipates receiving advice from the Public Safety Committee once it has formed.
Igliozzi said it is difficult to answer many questions about the reporting of crime "because we don't have a layperson overseeing these types of operations," Igliozzi said.
Under the administration of former Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, a public safety commissioner appointed by the mayor and approved by the council played this role. But when Mayor David Cicilline '83 came to office, he did not appoint a commissioner. Instead, he took on the role himself.
Igliozzi criticized the mayor's action as a circumvention of the system of checks and balances guaranteed in the city's charter.
Esserman's leadership has also posed problems, Igliozzi said. Esserman places unnecessary pressure on officers when he highlights the achievements of the departments in special press conferences, such as one held with Cicilline in mid-2004, he said.
"When you do that, you create very difficult expectations to achieve," he said.
"(Esserman) creates a pressure cooker which puts pressure to show progress because of his claim," he added.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Kennedy said there is no pressure put on officers to lower the crime rate.
"The pressure is to more accurately depict what the numbers are," he said. Tabulating accurate statistics is in the department's best interest, Kennedy said, because they help it identify trends and make informed decisions about assigning patrol officers.
In pushing for the audit, Igliozzi said his goal was to make his constituents feel safer about living in Providence.
"At this point in time, discussion about these questions is not forthright," Igliozzi said. "(Residents of Providence) feel more concerned and pensive with the types of violent crimes in the city," he added, noting the spike in violent crimes in the past year.
But Ward 2 City Councilwoman Rita Williams said that spike might simply reflect more effective enforcement on behalf of PPD officers.
"It's not that people are violating (the law) more," she said. "It's just that the police are able to apprehend people who are doing this."
Williams said she has heard other council members complain about the police records but was not aware of any underreporting of crimes, adding that the relationship between city residents and PPD officers is better today than it has been in the past.
"We've had communication like we've never had before (with the PPD)," Williams said. "I think they weren't always honest with us in the past. It's a very different atmosphere than it was in the past."
It remains unclear if the audit of police records will include crime data collected by Brown's Department of Public Safety. DPS spokeswoman Michelle Nuey did not respond to requests for comment.
