Rhode Island Senate passes reformed LEOBOR, goes to House

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Senate president Dominick Ruggerio’s reformed Law Enforcement Bill of Rights passed in the Senate Thursday.

The main change from the current version of LEOBOR would see the panel that adjudicates offenses expanded from just three law enforcement officials to also include a retired judge and the executive director of the Nonviolence Institute.

The bill also the period of unpaid suspension that can be levied against an officer without triggering statutory protections from two to 14 days.

Advocates both for and against reform spoke against the bill.

President of the Rhode Island Fraternal Order of Police John Donley said the bill goes too far.

“There’s two things that we would be against, one of them being allowing a domestic non-profit involved in police discipline,” he said. “We’re not aware of any other profession where there is an unaffiliated domestic non-profit involved in disciplining their members.”

Harrison Tuttle with BLMRIPAC, meanwhile, said the bill does not go far enough in its reforms.

“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,” he said.

The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.