Farias

EAST PROVIDENCE — The sisters of a man who died in police custody Wednesday said officers used excessive force to subdue him and that the force caused his death.

Gabriela Farias, 45, and Genoveva Porto, 46, didn’t deny that their brother, Leonel Farias, 40, a diagnosed schizophrenic, waved a knife at the police or that he struggled with them after he had a violent outburst in his home at 153 James St.

Both sisters said the officers — Gabriela Farias said there were six to eight of them — continued to beat Farias even after he had been knocked out with chemical spray and was down on the pavement.

Both sisters said the police kept beating him even after they begged them to stop. “They just kept hitting him and hitting him,” said Gabriela, a tech sergeant in the Air National Guard. “I know they were doing their job, but he was already out and they just kept hitting him. All I could see was blood and there’s still blood out there from all over the side of his face.”

In a statement released yesterday by Police Chief Hubert Paquette, he said Leonel Farias told officers to “come and get him” and said they “would have to shoot him.” When Farias tried to go inside, the police used pepper spray and struck him in an effort to subdue him, “but the subject continued to act completely unreasonable,” the statement said.

“A violent struggle ensued” between Farias and several officers, who eventually put him in handcuffs, Paquette said, adding that Farias, even while lying on the ground, continued kicking at the officers until he fell unconscious.

Genoveva Porto, who works as a Portuguese interpreter at Miriam Hospital in Providence, said the police version of events is that “they pepper-sprayed him and he fell. He flailed. He flailed and hit his head on the cement and that’s how he got the blood.

“But I was the witness to seeing my brother getting kicked and punched and there were many policemen on him. And he is a big guy and he was out of control but they continued. And then when I told them, ‘He’s down. He’s lifeless. Stop beating on him,’ one of the policemen, Craig Fournier, jumped over the fence, pushed me and said, ‘How would you like to be under arrest for messing with police?’ ”

The chain of events that led to Farias’ death started around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, when his father, Joseph Farias, 74, told him that he had had eaten enough and should stop.

Leonel Farias, who was 6 feet tall and weighed 300 pounds, had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Gabriela said that, when her father expressed concern about his eating too much, it set Leonel off. He became violent, she said, prompting the family to call the police for help. When officers arrived, Leonel Farias was outside the house waving a steak knife. He knew that they had come to take him away, she said, and didn’t want to go.

Police officers drew their guns, Gabriela said, and ordered Leonel to drop the knife. No shots were fired, she said, not even after Farias refused to relinquish the weapon.

But when he tried to reenter the house, only to find the screen door locked, she said, the police used a chemical spray to subdue him, then began kicking and punching him, she said.

“And then they handcuffed him. And then, when rescue came and they put him in, I really knew he was dead,” she said, weeping. “They killed him out there. I know they did.”

Farias was taken by rescue workers to Rhode Island Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived, Chief Paquette said. He could not say what time the man was pronounced dead.

The police wouldn’t respond to the charge that excessive force had been used in the incident.

When the police officer on duty at East Providence headquarters was asked over the telephone about the charge late yesterday, he hung up.

The statement issued by the police chief omitted Farias’ name or the address of the incident. Paquette said the police would disclose the name once all family members were notified, but relatives were speaking to the news media even as the chief refused to identify the deceased.

Paquette’s statement said several police officers at the scene on Wednesday received treatment from rescue workers for injuries they suffered in the struggle. No injuries were reported from the knife.

The attorney general’s office was not notified of the death until 8:30 a.m. yesterday, a delay which “is troubling and does not inspire confidence” in the East Providence Police Department, said a spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

“You can’t reconstruct a scene 15 hours after the fact,” said spokesman Michael J. Healey. “That’s the salient issue here.”

Healey said that East Providence failed to follow a protocol implemented by the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association in the wake of the accidental fatal shooting of an off-duty Providence police officer, Sgt. Cornel Young Jr., in January 2000.

While the protocol focuses on the police use of firearms, it also calls on any police department to notify the attorney general’s office and the state police immediately when anyone dies in police custody, Healey said.

“In general, police departments have followed the protocol,” he said, recalling about 15 occasions in his personal experience in which the protocol has come into play.

“I think that the local municipal police departments understand the wisdom of the protocol, which is to ensure credibility and confidence in the public trust,” Healey said.

“The use of force is and should be an exceptional event” and the public should feel confidence that the police are justified, he said.

Healey also acknowledged that the police must make “life-and-death decisions in split-second time frames.”

He said a prosecutor who serves as liaison with the East Providence police received a call yesterday morning about the death of the suspect, but the attorney general’s office has not been given any written report on the incident.

The attorney general’s office and the state police will work together “to try to ensure that this incident gets the independent review that it deserves,” Healey said.

Paquette could not be reached for comment on Healey’s remarks.

East Providence City Manager Richard Brown said, “We certainly regret the loss of life and our sympathies go out to the family. Yet we are still investigating and will release our findings when the investigation concludes.”

“It is always our intention to cooperate with the attorney general’s office,” said Brown.

“I will be talking with the chief to make sure the proper procedures were followed,” he said.

jcastell@projo.com