Providence Mayor Brett Smiley selected Oscar Perez as the new head of the city’s police department in February. A native of Colombia, Perez is a 29-year veteran of the force, and the first person of color to serve as Providence police chief. He succeeds Hugh Clements, who left for a job with the U.S. Justice Department. Perez sat down with Political Reporter Ian Donnis on Monday to talk about his background, priorities, and more.
Ian Donnis: Colonel, what are your long-term goals? What would you like to accomplish before you walk out the door for the last time?
Col. Oscar Perez: One of the key points of any police chief is to ensure that we continue to legitimize the department, build trust in the community, create better relationships between the police department and the community that we serve. Crime reduction is always something that is concerning for any police chief. But I do want to leave a legacy of legitimizing the department even more. I think we’re a model department throughout the nation. I want to increase on that. And also, I think that one of the big topics for me will be the wellness of my officers, right? I think it’s critical to ensure that they have the proper training and education, and wellness is important. This is a very demanding profession, and at times where we see the worst, unfortunately, in many different incidents. And I want to make sure that we have professional officers that are being cared for, and that are being provided with the resources in order to be able to provide the services that our communities need.
Donnis: You grew up on Elma Street in South Providence after coming with your family from Colombia to Rhode Island at age 13. How did what you saw while growing up as a teenager influence your view of policing?
Perez: I mean, I grew up in Medellín, Colombia, in the 80s. It was a very different life then. I came from humble beginnings, learned a lot as far as poverty, social ills of society, when I was in Colombia, and also always admired the profession of law enforcement. So when I came to the United States, also a neighborhood that had some social challenges, and I was able to adapt and also see how professional the officers were. So it caught my attention. But I think to your question, as far as my life experiences, I think, have been very broad, right. I’ve been able to learn so much, from being born in Colombia and then coming to the United States. And, I mean, I was an immigrant when he came here, I know what it was to go to school and obviously speak the language, and try and learn the language to try to integrate yourself into a new community. And then seeing classmates of mine who probably were not as well off as I was, having empathy and compassion for incidents that occur sometimes in the neighborhood where they were selling drugs, or people that were victimized, in understanding how we all, you know, kind of grew up together and learned from each other. But I think that those life experiences made me who I am.
Donnis: There were very few officers of color when you started with the department in 1994. What was that like for you?
Perez: Right? Yeah, I think I was one of less than 30 officers of color. I mean, I’m someone who, as you can see, I have an accent, right? And I’m in the academy with 60 other candidates. And it was just, it was different. I never, for one, thought I was less than anybody. I had a belief that I was someone that had a lot to give. I had some talents and skills. And so I never thought about being sort of, like, separated from other offices of different colors. I worked with some professional officers in the city back then. I was just focused on my mission and on the pride of being a Providence police officer.
Donnis: I’ve heard it sometimes said that residents in high-crime neighborhoods sometimes suffer from too much policing and not enough policing. The law-breakers get a lot of attention from police, and sometimes suspicion is put on law-abiding citizens because of the presence of crime in those neighborhoods. What is your thought on that? How can police effectively police low-income crime-ridden neighborhoods while helping to resolve the problems of law-abiding citizens?
Perez: And I’ve always said, and I’ve heard this before, where, you know, doing community police work and doing proactive police work are not mutually exclusive. You just have to be able to do them right, properly, in a professional, in a constitutional manner. I mean, I grew up in the city, I got pulled over by police officers. And I said this before, some were professional, some were not as professional. However, I also appreciated the fact that they were policing my neighborhood. Because I was trying to go to school, I was trying to get ahead, I was hungry, hungry to get a career. And I had individuals doing the wrong things in my neighborhood and in my street. And it was uncomfortable to leave my own house, seeing people selling drugs in the front of my porch. So when I saw a police officer, I felt safe. And I think that we got to know each other, and they start to realize that there was good people in the street, as well. But like I said earlier, it’s a very demanding job. And we got to have officers that are professional, that understand what type of policing they’re doing and who they’re doing it for. But I think data-driven, intelligence-driven, identifying who’s causing the issues in our neighborhoods is critical. Because you’re right. We don’t want to re-victimize individuals that are trying to get ahead in life.
Donnis: The Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights has been blamed by critics for impeding effective discipline of police officers. How do you look at that? What specific changes do you think are necessary to LEOBOR?
Perez: LEOBOR is basic due process for police officers. As I stated, it’s a very demanding job. That being said, though, I think the chief of police also should have the latitude to be able to discipline officers when things are so egregious, that are so obvious. To a certain extent, you have the latitude to discipline somebody. I also think that we need to be transparent with our community when it comes to certain issues. And right now LEOBOR restricts us from saying many things or speaking out loud about a specific case. And I think that gives the perception of something’s being hidden, the police department is not holding people accountable, we’re not transparent. And I think that’s important. So when it comes to that, I think LEOBOR, at least the chief should have some latitude to issue discipline. I don’t know what that number is, but definitely more than two days. And also, I think we need to be more transparent with our community, and be able to have more latitude to speak out loud when things are that obvious, because it almost looks like the chief’s not doing his job, and that’s not right.
Donnis: Col. Oscar Perez, chief of Providence police, congratulations on your appointment and thank you for sitting down with us.
Perez: Thank you very much for the opportunity. This is great to be able to communicate with our community. It’s a privilege, and thank you so much.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org. Follow him on Twitter @IanDon. Sign up here for his weekly RI politics and media newsletter.
