Six extra cruisers will be on city streets Thursday through Saturday from the early evening until 3 a.m.

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

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- In an unusual pairing, city police officers and state troopers will patrol the city in six teams on summer weekends through Labor Day, it was announced yesterday.

Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman said the extra manpower, working on overtime, will provide a greater uniformed presence at times when visitors from throughout Southeastern New England flood into the city to visit nightclubs, see WaterFire and other cultural events, and dine out.

"It's important to keep the capital city safe for everyone during the weekend when there is such an influx of visitors," Governor Carcieri said in a statement.

Although the two police departments work together on investigations and in special situations such as homeland security duty, generally they have not patrolled together.

Esserman portrayed the partnership as an extension of a cooperative arrangement in which troopers, on foot and in cruisers, have helped out at summertime festivals in Providence that generate significant crowds and traffic. The arrangement is continuing for the third summer.

He said he had recently enlisted state police help in handling traffic on so-called club nights, Thursday through Saturday, when traffic jams and rowdiness occur as clubs and bars close downtown and in the Jewelry District.

Esserman said his conversations about club nights with Col. Steven M. Pare, state police superintendent, evolved into a request that troopers patrol with city police.

The program was announced at a news conference at the Providence Public Safety Complex by Esserman and Maj. Steven O'Donnell, field operations commander for the state police.

There will be six extra cruisers on the streets. A city patrol officer and a trooper will ride together in five of them, and in a sixth, a supervisor from each department will ride together.

They will patrol Thursday through Saturday, from the early evening until 3 or 4 a.m.

The initiative, called the Neighborhood Response Team, will be commanded by Providence Capt. Anthony Sauro, who already oversees five community police districts. Sauro will dispatch the teams wherever they are needed, according to the chief.

Esserman said the teams are not a response to any particular law enforcement problem and have nothing to do with increased police visibility due to the heightened alert for homeland security.

"We, in fact, are reaching out [to the public] when there is no crisis," said Esserman, a strong advocate of city police partnerships with other organizations.

The Providence Police Department has about 470 officers; Esserman said as many as 100 uniformed and plainclothes officers are on duty some nights.

The state police have 224 officers. Asked why the state police want to expend resources in Providence, O'Donnell said that policing Providence is part of his department's mission.

Carcieri said in his statement that a lot of the visitors to Providence whom the state police would be safeguarding live elsewhere in Rhode Island.

O'Donnell hailed the program as a "unique opportunity for us as an agency to intermingle. It's great for our patrols to get to know each other. . . ."

"The state police and Providence are tied at the hip," he quipped.

Troopers have not partnered on patrols in this fashion with any other city or town police force, the major acknowledged.

The extra patrols began Thursday night and will run through Labor Day.

On the first night the teams mostly executed search warrants, according to Sauro, who said there was "nothing serious so far." Sauro said he expects the teams to spend a lot of time in high-crime areas and to address specific problems, such as an uptick in robberies on the East Side.

The estimated cost of the program was not immediately available, but Carcieri's office said the governor had approved $50,000 in overtime for the state police participation. His office was unable to say late Friday what account would be tapped.

Esserman said at the news conference that he did not have the city's cost handy, but that he will be able to cover it from his regular overtime budget. Mayor David N. Cicilline has approved the expenditure.