01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, April 23, 2005

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

The FBI will lead an investigation into whether law-enforcement officers used excessive force when capturing Esteban Carpio early Sunday morning, after he had allegedly shot Detective Sgt. James L. Allen with Allen's own gun.

The decision to investigate the officers' conduct came during a 45-minute meeting yesterday between Police Chief Dean M. Esserman, state police superintendent Col. Steven M. Pare, and Special Agent Kenneth W. Kaiser from the FBI's Boston office.

Officers with all three agencies participated in Carpio's capture.

In an interview yesterday, Esserman reiterated what he had said earlier this week: that he did not believe excessive force was used in apprehending Carpio.

"But we will keep the promise we made, which was to review everything," Esserman said. "I don't want to preclude the fact that something could come up."

"I think what's important here is simply the truth. Whatever the truth is. The department will hide nothing. It has committed itself to the public to tell the truth."

The investigation will begin Monday, Esserman said, with one or two representatives from each agency gathering information about its respective role in Carpio's capture. Esserman said he didn't know how long the investigation would take. "Let's see what develops," he said.

Detective Allen was pronounced dead at Rhode Island Hospital at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, while Carpio, who had allegedly shot out a third-floor window at the police station to escape, remained on the run.

Four police officers -- two from Providence and two from the state police -- and an FBI agent captured Carpio about 20 minutes later, a few blocks from the Public Safety Complex, as more than 100 officers swarmed through downtown.

Esserman has described Carpio's apprehension as a violent struggle in which several officers were needed to subdue and handcuff him.

Carpio's appearance Monday in court drew gasps. His eyes were swollen nearly shut, sutured cuts on his face bled, and he wore a mask -- referred to by authorities as a spit shield -- covering his nose, mouth and jaw.

Officials with the Department of Corrections, along with the sheriff's office, which transports suspects to court, jointly agreed to use the spit shield as a precaution, said Corrections spokeswoman Joy Fox. Officials were worried that Carpio might become unruly and spit blood at the sheriffs transporting him.

Speaking generally, Esserman acknowledged that suspects who harm police officers have at times been brutalized during apprehension.

"I've read about it. I've heard about it. But I also have read about, and heard about and also witnessed, officers showing remarkable restraint when others might not," Esserman said.

In a separate interview on Thursday, Esserman said he had taken steps to assure that Carpio remained safe after his capture.

He ordered that a squad of four police officers and a supervisor remain with Carpio at all times -- during his examination at Rhode Island Hospital, and then when he was brought back to the police station for booking.

"I did not want him to be alone at any time," Esserman said. "This suspect was going to be guarded and protected and no one was going to interfere. This man was in our custody, and sometimes you have to do pretty hard things -- like protect someone who just killed one of us."

Esserman also requested that the Adult Correctional Institutions send a transport team to pick up Carpio at the police station -- an unprecedented request as far as the prison was concerned, said Corrections spokeswoman Fox. In most cases, police officers transport a suspect.

The prison sent five correctional officers, a nurse and a deputy warden.

Fox said corrections officials knew that Carpio had jumped out a third-floor window and had been treated at Rhode Island Hospital for injuries. They wanted to ensure that he had been properly treated and discharged before they accepted him into their custody, she said.

Fox said they also understood the tinderbox of emotions shared among law-enforcement officials toward Carpio, a suspected cop killer.

In part to protect themselves from allegations of brutality, Fox said, members of the prison-transport team took photographs of Carpio before leaving police headquarters, and again when they reached the ACI's Intake Service Center.

The purpose of the photographs, said Fox, "was to show that obviously nothing happened in transport."

Those photographs have been turned over to the Providence police, Fox said, as part of the investigation.

On Thursday, the New England organization of NAACP chapters requested that the FBI investigate police treatment of Carpio, who is 26.

The joint investigation announced yesterday "is the best way to go," said Providence City Council President John J. Lombardi.

Some council members with whom Lombardi had conferred expressed support for the police and are upset that "we lost one of our men in blue," Lombardi said. Still, "a review of the policies and procedures is certainly going to be in order here. What were they, what are they," he added.

Said Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday: "We have always prided ourselves in this administration on transparency and on a process that is open, and the chief has begun that review and I expect there will be a process that will be shared with the public, and the questions will be answered."

With reports by staff writers Mark Arsenault and Gregory Smith