Rhode Island’s legislature passed a police reform bill last year, promising greater public access to information when a police officer is accused of misconduct.
But a state board responsible for delivering that transparency, the Police Officers Commission on Standards and Training (POST), failed to follow through.
Reporting by Ocean State Media revealed this week that a public docket of ongoing police disciplinary hearings hadn’t been created, despite being promised under a law that took effect this January.
Ocean State Media published its report on Tuesday. The following day, POST released case information that had been previously withheld.
The delay was caused by a political dispute behind the scenes over whether POST needs funding to fulfill these transparency obligations.
The 2024 police reform bill — titled the Law Enforcement Officers Due Process, Accountability and Transparency Act — did not provide POST with a budget for handling its new responsibilities.
Larry Berman, a communications director for House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, said the administrative burden created by the law “appears to be minimal.”
But police officials charged with compiling and sharing the information disagreed.
Sid Wordell, who leads the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, said POST is now responsible for updating a docket of ongoing disciplinary hearings, storing evidence, making records publicly available upon request, and filing an annual report summarizing each disciplinary hearing.
“Any other board that you look at under state government,” Wordell said, “they actually have a paid administrator.” POST, he said, has an all-volunteer board with no administrative help.
Wordell said his attempts to secure funding for an administrator after the law passed were ignored by Shekarchi, Gov. Dan McKee, and former Senate President Dominick Ruggerio.
But in the wake of our reporting, POST now has a section of its website where the public can check to see if officers in their community are facing discipline for serious misconduct, and stay updated on the status of those cases.
The website documents four police misconduct cases currently playing out in Rhode Island: one in Westerly, one in Tiverton, and two in South Kingstown.
Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, said he was surprised it took more than nine months for the commission to post this information.
“But we're certainly pleased that, as a result of the reporting, that information is now online,” Brown said, “and we hope that they will keep it up to date, as the law anticipates.”
