« I could only roll my eyes . . . | Main | Media Coverage/Political Fear /Race! »
Update #2: Disgrace in BTP
I called Major Fitzgerald, head of the Uniformed Division of the Providence Police, at 272-3121, ext. 6102, and left him a detailed message asking him what happened and why a uniformed policeman had come to my house and informed me that the event in the park was a permitted event, when the Parks Department had told me this morning that they had issued no permit for any event in the park. I asked him to return my call but as of now he has not done that. I will call him again in the morning.
Then I called the Police at 272-1111 and told the dispatcher that I was following up on a call for service that I had placed yesterday and that I wanted to speak with the officer who answered my call yesterday. She promised to send him to my house to speak with me. I wanted to ask him why he told me that the event in the park had a permit, to ask him if he had seen a permit and if he had whose name was on the permit and what type of event was the permit for.
I have a feeling that all this trouble could have been prevented if our City Employees, the DPW, the Parks Department, and especially the Police had all been on the same page and doing their jobs. Not to mention our City Councilor. Don't get me started on Mt. Hope's Mr. Useless.
They did send an officer to my house this afternoon but not the one who had responded yesterday. However, the one who did respond this afternoon was one of District 8's best, an officer I know pretty well for his reputation for toughness and fairness.
He told me that the incident had been covered in today's shift briefing and that additional officers had been assigned to Mt. Hope today because of the incident.
The most important things I learned from the police officer are these:
(1) the DPW did issue a permit for a block party allowing Cypress Street to be closed off between Camp Street and Knowles Street. (Note that only Cypress was mentioned in the permit, no permit was given to close off Camp Street at all.)
(2) the event was to commemorate the death of a young man who died in an auto accident last year, I believe he died as the result of a police chase of a stolen car or of a police chase the result of a routine traffic stop. I recall the incident, I do not recall the circumstances. I will check up on this,
(3) the officer had no information as to who applied for the permit nor who sponsored the event,
(4) the police officer claimed that the police had no knowledge of the event and that that is why no police were present,
(5) the officer told me that the DPW workers who came to place the road blocks on Cypress and Knowles were assaulted with thrown rocks when they attempted to remove the illegal roadblocks on Camp Street.
So, what have we learned:
1) that the party who applied for the permit intended to circumvent the Parks Department by applying only for a permit for a block party on Cypress Street between Camp and Knowles, all the while intending to use Billy Taylor Park for the event.
2) they illegally closed off Camp Street from Locust to Cypress and from Cypress to Locust.
3) then they illegally hijacked Billy Taylor Park for illegal puropses, They had no permission to use the park for any event. No entertainment license, no license for music, no license for food, and no license for fires in Billy Taylor Park.
In plain english, the event in Billy Taylor Park was totally illegal!
4) Camp Street should have never have been closed at all since
the permit only allowed the closing of Cypress from Camp to Knowles.
5) the Police Department was unaware of any of this and ended up pulling all officers from every neighborhood in Providence to disperse the resulting crowd from this illegal event.
Tomorrow I will be consolidating all of these updates and comments into the original post "Disgraceful Event in Billy Taylor Park"
If anyone has anything to contribute they can comment via the comment tab or send an blog entry to this link: Blog Entry.
I would really like to hear from the Summit Neighborhood Association, the SNA, or the West Broadway Neighborhood Association or the College Hill Neighborhood Association to see how well they support Mt. Hope during this outrageous situation.
Remember, Mt.Hope exports crime to your politically correct neighborhoods. Thank you for your support. Ha, ha, ha!
I will keep you updated.
John Twomey
Posted at June 11, 2007 08:35 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://alexandria51.2mhost.com/~mthopep/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/74