The Mayor Trying to Fix Policing
By BRAKKTON BOOKER | Politico’s “The Recast” | May 7, 2021
Jorge Elorza, the two-term mayor of Providence, R.I., and son of Guatemalan immigrants, earned high marks for helping to stabilize the city’s finances since he first won election in 2014.
It was a victory that came by toppling the late Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, who had the distinction of being both Providence’s longest-serving mayor and a convicted felon.
Virtually no one doubts the term-limited Democrat, 44, has his eye on the 2022 gubernatorial race. If he does run and is victorious, he’ll make history as the state’s first Latino governor.
Perhaps to help set himself apart for what is expected to be a crowded field, Elorza is leaning into policies championed on the left — which he’s confident will resonate with residents.
This includes a $600,000 budget proposal establishing a pilot program that aims to route public safety calls on mental health emergencies away from police who he says are “not trained professionals in this space.”
After our interview wrapped, he expressed support for a bill introduced in the state Senate that would repeal the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, which shields officers from investigation or criminal liability stemming from misconduct while in the line of duty.
The local Fraternal Order of Police hit back at the mayor, saying his support of the measure “is a slap in the face of every Police Officer in the State of Rhode Island, including his own Providence Police Officers.”
Elorza is also pressing forward with a plan for Providence to pay reparations to its Black residents for generations of systemic racism and exclusion, detailed in a 194-page report released in March. (Though he admits he’s not sure what form those reparations would take.)
He also touts having the state’s previous governor, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who traveled to Providence this week to help Vice President Harris promote the administration’s American Jobs Plan, as a boon for his state.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
THE RECAST: Vice President Kamala Harris was in the city on Wednesday. She's there pushing the administration's infrastructure plan, the American Jobs Plan. Any insight as to why Providence was used as the backdrop?
MAYOR ELORZA: Having the secretary of Commerce, the former governor of Rhode Island (Gina Raimondo), I think helps. They were here together. While they're putting the finishing touches of the plans together on an infrastructure plan, they’ve also got to get out there and make sure that they bring the public along with them and make folks feel connected to the work that they're doing in Washington.
THE RECAST: Some of the biggest things that are being fought over, especially with the infrastructure plan, is folks, especially on the right, feel like the administration is changing what infrastructure is — saying [the proposal] goes well beyond roads and bridges. Do you agree with the administration trying to expand that definition?
MAYOR ELORZA: Yes, I do. I think that infrastructure goes beyond concrete and steel, bricks and mortar. It also goes into the social infrastructure that allows people to thrive. Contrary to how it might seem with the partisanship in Washington today, public opinion still matters. I think it's smart what they're doing, not allowing one side — the Republicans — define the issue, but instead getting out there and also defending it and selling it themselves.
THE RECAST: What is the new model you're trying to implement and how do you hope it changes policing in Providence?
MAYOR ELORZA: Just in the past two years, we've seen calls for mental health needs double in our city. We simply don't have the professionals to be able to send to a call to treat the situation. So we send officers. And officers, they try their best, but they're not trained professionals in this space. What we're looking to do is to transition to providing professionals for mental health and social service needs that come to our attention. That allows for a much more multidisciplinary and a much more responsive approach to providing community safety.
THE RECAST: So in other words, when someone is calling the dispatcher for an emergency, there is now another option.
MAYOR ELORZA: Correct. Police, fire or mental health.
Mayor Jorge Elorza marches in a June 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. | Courtesy of Jorge Elorza's office
THE RECAST: If someone is having a mental health crisis and may have a weapon in their hand and police are the first to respond, use of force is one of the tools in their tool belt. How do you protect against that kind of scenario?
MAYOR ELORZA: Part of being responsive to the community's needs, is also raising awareness about the challenges that we have as a society. We are hoping that people will be better able to identify when, in fact, it is a mental health episode, and consult us in advance so that we dispatch the right personnel. And, if it is a situation where someone has a weapon, then surely as part of the team that you deploy, you send an officer.
THE RECAST: I know you have been at odds quite a bit with the police union in Providence. Last year, they held a vote of no confidence in your performance as mayor. Police unions wield a lot of power in local government, how has it been working with your local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police?
MAYOR ELORZA: Let me let me start off by making an obvious statement: that butting heads with the FOP has essentially been par for the course for any big city mayor. Part of our challenge as city leaders is respecting the frontline officers who do indeed do good work and want to make a difference, while at the same time acknowledging that we can do better. Policing is an institution that has evolved over time to where it is today. But if we designed it from scratch today, it would look very different. Do we really need to send police officers with a badge and a gun for fender-bender traffic accidents where no one gets injured?
THE RECAST: Do you feel like the FOP is too powerful in setting agendas, particularly in Providence?
MAYOR ELORZA: I can speak with certainty about here in Providence and in Rhode Island, the police unions have been very effective at protecting their advantages. The Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights is a state law that essentially puts an extra layer of oversight whenever a police officer is disciplined for more than two days suspension. No other public employee has this additional layer of protection that somehow police officers do. I think it should be repealed entirely. I can't think of any reason why we wouldn't trust police chiefs in the same way that other directors and other departments.
THE RECAST: Switching gears here, you know one thing about your city I found interesting, is the sizable Latino community there.
MAYOR ELORZA: We’re about 44 percent Latino. And I share that a lot with my friends in the South and the Southwest and in the West and they're shocked. They have no idea that there were so many Latinos concentrated in such a small place. There have been generations of Latino political leaders that have opened the door; now, they themselves have picked up the baton and passed it on to the next generation.
Mayor Jorge Elorza and Governor Dan McKee visit a Providence Vaccine Clinic in March. | Courtesy of Jorge Elorza's office
THE RECAST: Your administration has been trying to tackle and uncover the untold, or rarely spoken story, about the history of systematic racism and the mistreatment of communities of color. Eventually, you are hoping for some kind of reparations for Black residents. Why is this an important issue for you?
MAYOR ELORZA: I think it's important for us to tackle it directly because as a city, as a society, as a country, we have never tackled or addressed the issue of racism directly. This country has been built on the backs of African Americans and yet they've been shut out of wealth and building opportunities, systematically. We're part of a very small cohort of cities throughout the country that are pushing the conversation so that it isn't a third-rail conversation anymore, but it becomes part of the mainstream political conversation.
THE RECAST: So what does reparations look like, which is the million dollar question jurisdictions are grappling with?
MAYOR ELORZA: First and foremost, it's something that needs to be shaped by the community. And so we have to keep an open mind as to what the community itself thinks reparations should take. I think it has to take the shape of something that allows Black families to build wealth. I think that it has to take the shape of investments that help solidify and support neighborhood institutions that support the Black community.
The exact shape … we're going to be bringing together a committee and they are going to make recommendations to the city to the specific shape that reparations should take. And then it's our charge to make that come to be.
Mayor Jorge Elorza signs a community-driven Executive Order to remove Plantations from City documents and oath ceremonies in June 2020. | Courtesy of Jorge Elorza's office
THE RECAST: But you're not opposed to necessarily a one-time payment to Black residents of Providence — make it so it would go towards housing assistance to make a purchase of a home or something like that.
MAYOR ELORZA: I am not opposed to one-time payments. But the reality is that not Providence and not any city in the country has the capacity to make right the wrongs of the past. And so there are some limitations to what we can achieve. However, there does seem to be a convergence in this reparations conversation about helping folks with either home buying or homeownership. I followed very closely what Evanston (Ill.) has done. And I think that's certainly a model for other cities to emulate.
THE RECAST: Do you have any plans you want to announce right now about possibly taking on the current Gov. Daniel McKee? Just throwing it out there. If you wanted to, I'm happy to announce that for you if you'd like.
MAYOR ELORZA: (laughs) Sorry Brakkton. I appreciate the offer.