LEOBOR reform bill moved forward by RI State Senate

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The Rhode Island State Senate looked at the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) Tuesday afternoon and sent a bill reforming the controversial policy to the floor.

Senate bill 2096 passed through committee Tuesday, a near carbon copy of a bill that made its way through the senate in 2023 before it stalled out at the end of the session.

It’s one of four bills being introduced looking to reform LEOBOR, with changes including expanding an oversight committee, changing the length of certain penalties, improving transparency, and more.

Rhode Island is one of only a handful of states with LEOBOR still in place.

Broadly, LEOBOR protects law enforcement officers being investigated for misconduct, and advocates say it’s in need of reform.

“We need to get it together,” said Jeremy Costa during testimony. “[Out of] 29 states, we are the outlier in decertification. We need to get it together. This is a great bill; this is a great start.”

But the Black Lives Matter RI Political Action Committee (BLMRIPAC) says a good start is not enough.

“It really doesn’t matter how we shake out LEOBOR because, at the end of the day, the community is never going to buy into the process if they always feel like they’re being targeted all the time,” said Harrison Tuttle with BLMRIPAC.

Tuttle told ABC 6 their support is behind a repeal of the bill rather than a reform they feel does not go far enough.

“This bill does not pass the Dolan test,” Tuttle said, referring to Pawtucket officer Daniel Dolan who shot a teenager in 2021, but was acquitted on related charges last January.

“But officer Daniel Dolan, at the end of the day, would still be able to carry out the same thing that he did as last time if this piece of legislation passed,” Tuttle added.

The RI Fraternal Order of Police agreed with Tuttle that this bill should not move forward — but for different reasons.

“There’s two things that we would be against,” said John Donley, the state president of the RI Fraternal Order of Police. “One of them being allowing a domestic non-profit involved in police discipline. We’re not aware of any other profession where there is…an unaffiliated domestic non-profit involved in disciplining their members.”

The bill passed committee unanimously.

“There’s lots of moving parts in this statute, which is why you’re hearing so many differences of opinions on particular provisions,” said Steven Brown with the ACLU. “But we think it’s important to make it as strong as possible, so we don’t have to be back here in a year or two saying it’s not working.”

“There’s still problems with accountability and transparency,” Brown continued. “Let’s try to take care of them now by passing as strong of a reform bill as possible.”

The full senate will hear the bill Thursday, and advocates do feel confident this can pass in 2024.

The full text of the bill can be found here.