Providence Mayor Brett Smiley called for a third-party review of the city’s response to the shooting at Brown in December in a Tuesday letter addressed to the director of the Providence Emergency Management Agency.
An external consultant will work with the city “to improve coordination and communication in response to major threats or emergencies,” Smiley wrote in the after-action letter.
The City Solicitor’s Office will be involved in evaluating external consultants’ credentials throughout the hiring process, City Press Secretary Anthony Vega wrote in an email to The Herald. He added that the solicitor’s office is “moving expeditiously” to find a consultant.
Smiley’s letter also outlined next steps “to better understand areas of improvement or opportunity” in the city’s public safety departments, including in notification and mental health support.
The City of Providence will additionally “review internal and external notification to partners, public and the press,” the letter stated. In the days following the shooting, the city received criticism from some residents, who said they did not receive sufficient communication from the city during the attack.
The city also plans to review all existing public safety memorandums of understanding between the city and local institutions. This will include agreements surrounding Providence law enforcement’s access to resources such as surveillance cameras for the city’s Real Time Crime Center, a centralized system that aims to make responses to crime more efficient.
The city currently offers Providence property owners a voluntary camera registration program. Two levels of registration allow the Providence Police Department different scopes of access to businesses’ and residents’ private camera feeds.
“Given how critical the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) is to solving crimes in Providence, and how instrumental it was during the tragic incidents at Brown University, we are reaching out individually to partners to ensure they understand the goals and opportunities of the program, and to encourage large institutions to consider connecting to the RTCC,” Providence Department of Public Safety Chief Public Information Officer Kristy dosReis wrote in an email to The Herald.
The Providence Journal previously reported that the RTCC was linked to over 300 cameras on Dec. 13, but none of those cameras were located in or near Barus and Holley, where the shooting occurred.
“The City has had preliminary discussions with Brown University about connecting with the RTCC,” dosReis wrote. “In the coming weeks, we will be having similar discussions with Brown as well as with other colleges and universities throughout Providence regarding the program.”
“We are confident that once institutions and property owners learn more about the program and understand its public safety benefits, many will choose to participate,” she added.
The city will work with local unions “to ensure that all appropriate after-action resources were implemented and sufficient for staff” in the realm of mental health, Smiley wrote. Providence will also “participate in the establishment and oversight” of a temporary resiliency center where anyone can receive mental health support.
In the wake of the shooting, Brown is soliciting its own external evaluations, overseen by a committee of the Brown Corporation, the University’s highest governing body. These include an after-action review and a comprehensive campus safety and security assessment,” University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Education announced in December that the Office of Federal Student Aid is launching an investigation into the University’s security. The federal investigation of the University’s security is separate from the reviews Brown and Providence are conducting.
Smiley’s letter also contains a timeline of the city’s response to the attack on Dec. 13. The timeline’s purpose, Smiley wrote in the letter, is to “ensure shared understanding across departments, support informed decision-making and provide clarity” during the transition from “immediate response to review, improvement and recovery efforts.”
The timeline begins at 4:05 p.m. on Dec. 13, when the Providence Telecommunications Department Police Control Center and Fire Alarm Bureau of Control first received reports of shots fired and one person wounded.
The first police and fire units arrived on scene five minutes later, at 4:10 p.m., according to the timeline. The document details various law enforcement, city and University efforts until 6:01 a.m. the next morning, when the city notified media outlets of a fourth press conference.
The letter notes that “from the first 911 call, it took approximately 80 seconds to dispatch and less than 3 minutes 20 seconds to arrive on scene.”
“The City has completed its internal reviews and is confident in the initial emergency response, which met and exceeded national standards and helped prevent more severe injuries,” Vega wrote to The Herald. “The City is committed to releasing the full report once it is complete and to continuing to earn the community's trust.”
The PEMA did not respond to a request for comment.
Smiley called for the city to “approach this review with rigor, transparency and a clear focus on learning and improvement.”
Michelle Bi is a sophomore and metro section editor at The Herald.
