Rhode Island police face complaints about 'third-shift terror squad'

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A lawyer calls it the "third-shift terror squad," a band of white officers who patrol the South Side of Providence at night and, residents say, strike fear into blacks and Latinos by harassing and in some cases beating them.

"They're terrorizing the city," said Charm Howie, a black former police cadet who was arrested by the crew. "I told them, 'I'm a father. My kids are up there in the window. Please don't disrespect me in front of my children.'"

A drive through the neighborhood for pizza in July 2015 ended with Howie splayed against a car and charged with disorderly conduct, assault and resisting arrest by the white rookie officers who stopped him for a broken headlight. A judge later acquitted Howie, citing among other things doubts about the officers' credibility.

In interviews, Providence's top police officials defended the department's record and said they have worked to improve relations and discipline and retrain officers. More than 75 percent of the nearly 400-member force is white, while just 36 percent of the city's 179,000 residents are white.

"We're not perfect, but we've had a tremendous record of our use of restraint as a police department," Police Chief Hugh Clements Jr. said last month after welcoming the city's most diverse class of cadets to the academy. "We're proud of our record, we're proud of what we've done, and we anticipate we're about to get better."

Cellphone videos that surfaced last year showing questionable use of force against South Side residents have spurred calls for reform and a push for an ordinance banning racial profiling by police.

"Community members are telling us that police are following them, taking photos of youth when they get out of school, putting them in gang databases," said activist Vanessa Flores-Maldonado. "The further you go down Broad Street, the more and more police officers you see. That's no coincidence. The further you go down Broad Street, the more black and people of color there are."