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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The Rhode Island State Senate looked at the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) Tuesday afternoon and sent a bill reforming the controversial policy to the floor.
Senate bill 2096 passed through committee Tuesday, a near carbon copy of a bill that made its way through the senate in 2023 before it stalled out at the end of the session.
It’s one of four bills being introduced looking to reform LEOBOR, with changes including expanding an oversight committee, changing the length of certain penalties, improving transparency, and more.
Rhode Island is one of only a handful of states with LEOBOR still in place.
Broadly, LEOBOR protects law enforcement officers being investigated for misconduct, and advocates say it’s in need of reform.
“We need to get it together,” said Jeremy Costa during testimony. “[Out of] 29 states, we are the outlier in decertification. We need to get it together. This is a great bill; this is a great start.”
But the Black Lives Matter RI Political Action Committee (BLMRIPAC) says a good start is not enough.
“It really doesn’t matter how we shake out LEOBOR because, at the end of the day, the community is never going to buy into the process if they always feel like they’re being targeted all the time,” said Harrison Tuttle with BLMRIPAC.
Tuttle told ABC 6 their support is behind a repeal of the bill rather than a reform they feel does not go far enough.
“This bill does not pass the Dolan test,” Tuttle said, referring to Pawtucket officer Daniel Dolan who shot a teenager in 2021, but was acquitted on related charges last January.
“But officer Daniel Dolan, at the end of the day, would still be able to carry out the same thing that he did as last time if this piece of legislation passed,” Tuttle added.
The RI Fraternal Order of Police agreed with Tuttle that this bill should not move forward — but for different reasons.
“There’s two things that we would be against,” said John Donley, the state president of the RI Fraternal Order of Police. “One of them being allowing a domestic non-profit involved in police discipline. We’re not aware of any other profession where there is…an unaffiliated domestic non-profit involved in disciplining their members.”
The bill passed committee unanimously.
“There’s lots of moving parts in this statute, which is why you’re hearing so many differences of opinions on particular provisions,” said Steven Brown with the ACLU. “But we think it’s important to make it as strong as possible, so we don’t have to be back here in a year or two saying it’s not working.”
“There’s still problems with accountability and transparency,” Brown continued. “Let’s try to take care of them now by passing as strong of a reform bill as possible.”
The full senate will hear the bill Thursday, and advocates do feel confident this can pass in 2024.
The full text of the bill can be found here.
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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