Residents still upset over recent melee in Taylor Park

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 22, 2007

By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE —

“I was shaking. It was just unbelievable,” said Peter Cassels. “It was a terrible melee …”

Recalled John Twomey: “It was a nightmare. I never want to live through that again.”

What occurred in and around Billy Taylor Park in Mount Hope on June 10 still has tongues wagging in the neighborhood. And it has produced a vow by City Councilman Kevin Jackson.

A family cookout that afternoon and evening deteriorated into a wild disturbance in which police officers and employees of the city traffic engineering unit found themselves dodging rocks and bottles. Four officers suffered minor injuries.

Seven people were charged, including at least two members of the family that sponsored the cook-out at the park and a man who allegedly escaped police custody and had someone cut off his handcuffs.

Jackson, D-Ward 3, obtained a street-closing permit from the city on behalf of Michelle Lewis of University Heights, who told him that she wanted to have a cookout for about 50 people to celebrate the end of the school year and to remember her son who died last year. But no one obtained the required permits to use Billy Taylor Park, to have amplified music and to have live entertainment. And no one notified the Police Department, which the police say is a requirement.

About 150 people came, as Jackson understands it, and the event got out of hand. He vowed yesterday that from now on he will only get street-closing permits on behalf of organized groups rather than individuals, to ensure that a legal and orderly event is the result.

“I think they were just overwhelmed with the amount of people that were there,” Jackson said. Lewis could not be reached for comment.

Twomey, acting president of Greater Camp Concerned Citizens, a longtime neighborhood organization, charged that the cookout became intolerably loud, in violation of the city noise ordinance, with profane gangster rap audible from nearby streets, that illegal street barricades were erected and that the event became the occasion for brazen drug dealing.

He complained that an officer who responded to his call to the police that day was not diligent, in part because the officer failed to verify that the people holding the cookout had the necessary permits.

Twomey, who lives at 28 Locust St., adjacent to the park, said that after several years’ improvement in the neighborhood due to police attentiveness, he is worried that Mount Hope is regressing. Twomey was joined in his criticism by Eric Lim and Cassels, another neighbor. Lim, who is a tenant of Twomey’s in a house at Camp and Locust streets, said he intends to move out.

“I don’t even feel safe walking home at night,” Lim said.

Lim said that when he moved some parts of a crude barricade to drive down Camp Street that afternoon, bystanders cursed him. Cassels said that he and other neighbors are upset about how the event spiraled out of control and that he now wants to sell his house and move.

Lt. David Schiavulli, commander of police District 8, said the officer about whom Twomey complained saw that part of Cypress Street was blocked off with city sawhorses and understandably assumed that the event was properly permitted. At that time, the crude barricades that people later put up on Camp Street were not in place, Schiavulli said. Twomey insisted that they were.

Twomey said that a professional sound system was set up in the park, that the noise level initially was controlled, but that it became intolerably loud at about 5 p.m. and continued that way until 8:30, when the violence erupted. Some profane rappers came on, backed by a deejay playing a back beat, with their voices amplified through the sound system, he said. When the sound system was turned off at about 7 p.m., according to Twomey, owners of sport-utility vehicles parked, blocking the street, and played music from their stereos at an excessive level.

Twomey said that he has been unable so far to obtain pertinent city records to prove his allegations, but he also alleged that no one obtained an insurance policy that was required for the event. Such policies are sometimes called for to indemnify the city for financial damages if something goes wrong.

The event began to explode when one or more city workers returned to remove the city sawhorses. They saw the crude barricades and also began removing them, when bystanders began pelting them with rocks and bottles, according to the lieutenant. The police returned, too, and said they saw about 200 people in the park and curbside on Camp Street.

Patrolman Brian Auclair began to write a summons for a noise violation for a man who had allegedly parked his SUV in the middle of the street, with the doors and the trunk lid open and the stereo blasting. People in the crowd began to curse and to menace Auclair and Patrolman Jose Mendez, and assistance was summoned, according to a police report.

Brian Daily, 22, of 82 Cumberland St., allegedly interfered with the officers’ attempts to keep the crowd under control, despite repeated warnings. Mendez arrested and handcuffed him and placed him in the back seat of a police cruiser. Bottles and rocks then began flying, and one rock narrowly missed Mendez’s head and broke a cruiser window, Schiavulli said.

Reinforcements arrived — about 20 more officers — leaving other neighborhoods with skimpy police protection, according to Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald. Six more arrests were made, but in the chaos someone allegedly let Daily out of the cruiser and he escaped.

The police said Daily turned himself in at police headquarters the next day and handed in the cuffs, which had been cut through. He was charged with obstructing police, escaping custody and malicious damage.

Also charged were: Anthony Souza, 21, of Riverdale, Ga., with simple assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and malicious mischief; Gregory Bowman, 27, of 59 Lonsdale Ave., Pawtucket, with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct; Preston Laughlin, 26, of 76 Duncan Ave., Providence, with disorderly conduct; and Sheena Gonsalves, 21, of 69 Heath Ave., Warwick, with disorderly conduct.

Also, David Lewis, 19, of 131 Columbia Ave., Pawtucket, and Shanda Lewis, 29, of 3739 Pawtucket Ave., East Providence, were both charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

gsmith@projo.com