News & Commentary

As conflict over race-based discriminatory police practices permeates the country, ACLU of RI cooperating attorneys Shannah Kurland and Lynette Labinger today filed suit in federal court over a Pawtucket School Resource Officer’s (SRO) gratuitous and unlawful handcuffing and arrest last year of Tre’sur Johnson, a 13-year-old African-American honors student at Goff Middle School. The suit alleges that the defendants’ treatment of her violated numerous constitutional and statutory rights, including her right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorney Amato DeLuca filed suit in federal court seeking monetary damages on behalf of a former Narragansett High School student with special education needs who was thrown to the ground, choked and falsely arrested by a school resource officer (SRO) over a rude hand gesture the student gave the SRO. A videotaped record of the incident, which occurred two years ago, shows SRO Kyle Rooney forcefully slamming to the floor and restraining 11th-grader Michael Blanchette for a few minutes before removing him from the school in handcuffs.

As part of a nationwide effort organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request with state officials to obtain information about Rhode Island’s plans to address a likely, and potentially catastrophic, outbreak of COVID-19 at the ACI. The APRA request was one of dozens filed across the country by ACLU Affiliates today.

Today the ACLU released a report showing that Black people in Rhode Island are 3.3 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession despite comparable marijuana usage rates among the two racial groups. Similar arrest disparities were documented in a 2013 report issued by the ACLU, but they have gotten worse, not better, over the past decade. The report also shows that the racial disparities are even more pronounced, and way above the national average, outside Providence County. The findings of the new research are especially disturbing given Rhode Island’s marijuana reform over the last decade in decriminalizing arrests for possession of small amounts of the drug.

Civil liberties often face their greatest challenges in times of crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Governor Raimondo has taken many commendable steps to address this medical emergency, but her decision authorizing a wide-scale police roadblock at the I-95 border is a dangerous intrusion on civil liberties that cannot be justified on public health grounds and should be rescinded.

Calling it a “flagrant breach” of the state’s Access to Public Records Act, the ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed with the Attorney General a complaint against the Narragansett Police Department for refusing to release any copies of its final investigations of complaints of police misconduct.  The complaint was filed by ACLU of RI cooperating attorney James Cullen on behalf of Dimitri Lyssikatos, a member of the Rhode Island Accountability Project.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has issued the following statement in response to the R.I. Supreme Court's decision today ruling that records of the grand jury's investigation of the 38 Studios debacle cannot be released:

Bolstered by similar national trends, Rhode Island has enacted several positive and significant criminal justice reform measures over the past few years. Unfortunately, every step forward by the General Assembly seems to be accompanied by a step back.

Under a stipulation signed by R.I. Superior Court Judge Robert Krause and entered today, the RI Department of Corrections (DOC) will release from custody a man that ACLU of Rhode Island attorneys argued was unlawfully being held in prison despite a unanimous decision by the R.I. Parole Board to release him on supervised parole.