Providence pays $300,000 settlement in police use-of-force case from 2020 protests

PROVIDENCE — The city of Providence has paid $300,000 in a settlement with a man who accused two officers of hitting him in the back of the head with a baton and kneeing him in the ribs while he was protesting police brutality in the fall of 2020.

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The settlement was paid to Christopher Murphy, 51, a social worker who lives in Barrington and was arrested at the protest.

Murphy sued the two officers, Flavio Tavares and Irwin Torres, in federal court in 2022, alleging excessive force, after he said he sustained a concussion and other injuries while being arrested during the protest while marching to Providence police department headquarters on Washington Street.

Hundreds of people were demonstrating against police after a high-profile police crash critically injured a moped rider, Jhamal Gonsalves, two days earlier. The city later paid $11 million to Gonsalves’s family in that case, which will provide for his ongoing medical care.

More than a dozen people were arrested at the protest, and police at the time said one officer was hospitalized when a thrown object hit his helmet.

The city of Providence and the two officers denied Murphy’s claims, and did not admit any fault by settling the case. Police argued they used force to arrest Murphy because he was not listening to commands.

Video of the incident used in the case showed police in riot gear walking in a line behind Murphy. An officer is seeing lunging at Murphy from behind and taking him to the ground.

“My back was towards them,” Murphy said in an interview Thursday. “I had bruises all over my body.”

Four years into the civil suit, Judge William Smith in January ruled that Tavares did violate Murphy’s rights by using a “takedown maneuver” to arrest him, but said he would leave it up to a jury at trial to determine if Tavares hit Murphy in the back of the head with the baton, and any damages to be awarded. He also denied Tavares qualified immunity in the case, a legal doctrine that typically protects officers from personal liability, including paying damages.

Smith also found that Torres violated Murphy’s rights by kneeing him in the side without giving him a chance to “submit peacefully” to arrest, but also found “a reasonable officer may not have understood that the knee strikes were unlawful under the circumstances.” Smith wrote in an order that Torres was captured on video issuing Murphy commands, including telling him to “give me your hands,” but it may have been masked by a car horn that blared at the same time. Torres was granted qualified immunity.

The case settled before going to trial.

Tavares and Torres were not disciplined and remain active duty police officers in Providence.

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“There’s no accountability on the police side at all,” Murphy said. “The city just pays it out. It’s the cost of doing business for them.”

Michael Colucci, the attorney for Tavares and Torres, maintains that his clients would have been exonerated at trial. The officers gave up the chance to appeal Smith’s ruling because of the settlement.

“My biggest regret here is that we did not get the opportunity to try this case to a jury,” Colucci said in an email. “Given the hours of mayhem and riotous conditions these and other on-scene officers had to endure (thrown rocks, bottles, explosive devices, and other projectiles), it is not likely that a jury would have excused Mr. Murphy’s antics in the middle of all of that.”

A city spokesperson did not immediately comment on the settlement.

Murphy, who said the protest was “peaceful” until it was escalated by police, said that after his arrest, he was zip-tied and put in a van with other arrestees before spending the night in jail. He was not seen at the hospital for his injuries until he was released the next day. His injuries were not life-threatening, Murphy said, but he suffered a concussion, a knee injury, and bruises.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the latter of which was later dismissed. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct and got a one-year filing, Murphy said, which means the case was expunged after a year.

The incident happened at a time when tensions were high across the country following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and other high-profile police misconduct cases.

The Gonsalves moped incident struck a nerve in Providence, prompting protests and calls for change and defunding the police in 2020 and 2021.

“I was just really disgusted with how the police had once again like treated somebody in the community,” Murphy said, explaining why he attended the protest.

Six years later, few politicians are calling to defund the police in Providence anymore. The issue has come up in this summer’s Providence mayoral race, where Mayor Brett Smiley is running TV ads accusing his challenger, state Representative David Morales, of wanted to cut funding to the Providence police.

But Morales, who said he supported defunding police during protests in 2021, has repeatedly said he no longer holds that view.

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