In a letter citing a lack of public transparency by the Pawtucket Police Department, the ACLU of Rhode Island today called on Attorney General (AG) Peter Neronha to immediately release all police body worn camera (BWC) footage of the shooting last month of resident Sebastian Yidana. The letter from the civil liberties organization also called on the AG to examine whether the police department itself had released all the footage of the incident and to investigate failures of the department to ensure that BWC and “use of force” protocols were properly followed.
The ACLU’s request comes more than one month after the incident in which Yidana, who is mentally disabled, was waving a toy replica of a gun in public when he was shot by officer Thomas Letourneau. The letter notes that the recordings released by Pawtucket officials document only what happened after the shooting had already taken place even though, under departmental policy and the camera’s pre-programmed functions, the BWC should have been activated before the shooting occurred.
The letter further questions Letourneau’s failure to submit a written statement about the incident and supervisory personnel’s failure to ensure such a statement was prepared. The ACLU letter stated: “The whole point of preparing a statement is undermined if it is not done while the incident is still fresh in the officer’s mind. The absence of a concurrent statement from the officer directly involved in the shooting can only hinder a meaningful examination of the incident, and the lack of any timely supervisory follow-up is even more disturbing.”
Noting that in the past 25 years, Pawtucket police have been involved in many more deadly shootings than any other department in the state, the letter notes that “[o]ne would expect that, of all police departments in the state, Pawtucket would be the one most concerned about ensuring strict compliance with all policies governing the discharge of weapons by its officers. It is unsettling to see that this is not the case.”
The ACLU letter to the AG concludes with a series of requests:
We call upon you to exercise your independent authority . . . to immediately release all the recordings of this shooting that are in your agency’s possession. [In addition,] we ask that you investigate the alleged absence of BWC footage of the shooting itself, and address the impact of the Pawtucket Police Department’s non-compliance with its policies governing use of force incidents on your office’s ability to comprehensively review this incident.
The ACLU letter to the Attorney General can be found here.
