NEW: Kerwin Issues Statement Disputing Providence Police Report
Thursday, July 23, 2020
In response to a GoLocal article about an incident on Wednesday night involving an interaction between Providence Police and Councilwoman Kat Kerwin, Kerwin issued a statement disputing what was written in a Providence Police report.
According to the Providence police report, Kerwin told police that downtown neighbors should “f—king get over it,” after a complaint was made about loud music at a bar — that was not licensed for entertainment.
Kerwin’s Statement Says:
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLast night, I was at Fortnight just after 9PM when three police officers showed up claiming they had received a “noise complaint”. This seemed extremely unlikely to me -- Fortnight was playing music just loud enough for the patrons of the bar sitting outside to hear, much less loud than the normal noise level outside on that block of downtown at night.
Fortnight is a local bar that has vocally defended the Black Lives Matter movement and supported the movement in Providence to defund the police, and they have attested to being a frequent target of harassment by the police.
Indeed, people from Fortnight and patrons told me that for the last few weeks Providence Police cars have been repeatedly driving past the bar w and turning on their sirens while passing with the purpose to harass, intimidate, and annoy patrons and workers and incidentally create a lot more noise than the music in question last night. I was also told that a Providence Police Officer yelled out the window of their patrol car “I f--ked your mother” at a patron while driving by on July 17th at 8 pm. The patron filed a police report and has received no response.
Upon arrival, three officers approached someone working at the bar. The first officer to speak to the worker was extremely belligerent and was yelling right in the workers face and refusing to stand farther away despite COVID-19 issues and repeated requests to do so. At this point someone working at the bar asked me to intervene.
I noted that I was a Councilor, and was concerned about the presence of so many officers for such a minor complaint. After this a different officer spoke to the worker much more reasonably, said they had no intention of citing the bar and just wanted the music turned down. The bar staff then cooperated fully and turned the music off completely. However, minutes later 3 more police cars and four more officers arrived at the scene to respond, circling the bar in an act of intimidation -- and proving that this had nothing to do with a noise complaint, as the bar had zero music on at all.
