Clash of protesters, police reverberates in Providence

PROVIDENCE – Nearly two hours into Saturday night’s demonstration to defund or abolish the police, a Providence police cruiser, sirens blaring, drove straight toward a line of protesters who were standing with their arms linked across Elmwood Avenue near the intersection with Whitmarsh Street.

The cruiser accelerated, stopping just short of the demonstrators, who did not budge, but instead sat down in the street in front of the vehicle.

The incident was one of many dramatic moments during the nearly three-hour protest, but it was a particularly disturbing one for participants and observers.

Marah Nagelhout, a Phd candidate at Brown University who attended Saturday night’s protest said in a statement that she was standing directly in front of two police cars that aggressively drove toward protesters.

“I can't speak for anyone but myself, but having a police car lunge at you is terrifying because frankly there is absolutely nothing about the police in this country that would make me the least bit hopeful that they wouldn't just plow through us,” she wrote. “I experienced a similarly threatening police technique at a protest in Franklin Park, Boston in early June. Was I scared? Yes, but that fear is nothing compared to the fear and violence to which BIPOC individuals are subjected daily in this county by racist policing.”

She wrote that this is the reason protest organizers ask white participants to move to the front of groups and protect protesters of color from police.

“We have to ask ourselves, what would have happened if Black protesters were linking arms in front of those police cruisers?” her statement says. “I think we know the answer, and that is a fundamental testament to why we need to defund, disarm, and disband the police.”

The video sparked impassioned reactions on social media, with many saying it was a risky move used to threaten protesters and some saying it was a justified display of force.

“If you look at it at face value, you could almost miss how profound it was that [the officer] was not only thinking about, but about a stone’s throw away from mowing down a crowd of peaceful protesters, and young ones at that,” said Mark Fisher, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Rhode Island, who was not at the protest Saturday night but watched a video of the incident. The protest was organized by a young activist group called MATCH — Making Abolition Through Collective Humanity.

Dennis Kenney, a professor of policing and organized crime at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said that the decision to drive toward protesters was dangerous and could have resulted in injury or death.

“There’s no way to make this a legitimate police tactic,” he said. “It’s exceptionally risky behavior.”

Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré said he would investigate the incident before determining whether the move was justifiable.

“What you see is a little troubling, but I will reserve judgment until we get the full circumstances that led up to what you see in the video,” he said.

Saturday night’s protest began with about 150 people marching to the Providence Public Safety Complex where a violent confrontation with officers ensued. The group then marched down Broad Street and Elmwood Avenue before looping back to Westminster Street in front of Classical High School.

Officers arrested five people, four of whom will be arraigned in Providence District Court on Thursday. The fifth person, Joan Steffen, 27, of Quincy, Massachusetts, who was charged with three counts of assaulting a police officer, a felony, and resisting arrest, will be sent to Rhode Island Superior Court in the coming weeks.

Around 100 officers responded to the protest Saturday night at a cost of $22,000-$25,000 to the police department, according to police spokeswoman Lindsay Lague. State police also responded.

“Overall, I think they did a phenomenal job,” Paré said of the Providence officers’ handling of the protest.

He said that the officers’ goal is always to protect protesters, and officers were concerned that by blocking intersections and marching through the streets after dark, the protesters were in danger in the traffic.

“If we just let it go and there’s no [police] presence, one of those protesters is going to end up getting hurt because they're in the road and people don’t expect people to be in the road at 10 o'clock at night,” he said.

There have been dozens of accounts across the country of cars driven by civilians ramming into crowds of protesters, in some cases killing or injuring them, according to the New York Times. Police officers have also been accused of driving into protesters in other states.

Last August, two demonstrators were injured outside the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls after a correctional officer drove his truck through the crowd.

Most cars that encountered the protesters on Saturday either turned back or drove around the group if protesters were only blocking one lane. Some vehicles followed behind honking in support or playing music.

It was the actions of the officer driving the cruiser that placed protesters in harm’s way, Kenney said.

“There should definitely be disciplinary action,” he said. “If nothing else, that’s an assault. That’s an assault with a deadly weapon that could’ve ended very badly. That should not be acceptable behavior from an officer.”

Nagelhout said in her statement that it’s because of actions like these that people continue to protest.

“I am asking for police abolition, not asking for police reform because they have only proven again in recent months that they are incapable of anything other than violence,” she wrote. “We protest police brutality and they respond with more brutality at worst, and short lived displays of performative solidarity at best"

mlist@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter:@madeleine_list