ACLU to ask court for report on fatal shooting of Latino Man by Central Falls Police

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island arm of the American Civil Liberties Union will be in Superior Court tomorrow to ask a judge to expedite a hearing for its lawsuit seeking a police report that details what happened the night of April 8 when Central Falls Police shot and killed Selvin Garrido Morales.

 Central Falls Police Chief Joseph Moran has refused to give up information regarding the shooting pending the finding of a grand jury. He says that under the Access to Public Records Act, he is exempted from providing the information.

The hearing may be moot because the grand jury is expected to be finished tomorrow or Thursday. Moran has said that once the jury is finished, he will make public what happened that night.

Still, the ACLU will go ahead with the hearing because the matter is too important and is setting a dangerous precedent, said Executive Director Steven Brown.

“One of the major concerns we have is what the [Central Falls] Police Department has done in this case. The city’s argument has much broader ramifications than just incidents of police shootings. If they are serious about their argument any crime committed that might warrant referral to grand jury means the arrest report is secret. That means any serious crime. The public may be kept in the dark for weeks to months. We strongly believe that is directly contrary both to the spirit and the letter of the Open Records Law.”

 Two police officers shot and killed Morales in his third-floor apartment when he came at them with a knife, they said.

Marta Altolaguirre Larraondo, the vice minister of foreign relations in Guatemala who was visiting Rhode Island last week, said that her government, which had returned Garrido to his country to be buried, wanted to know the results of the investigation because it had concerns about the Guatemalan national’s death. “We had concerns that a Latin American man was killed and wanted to know how it happened,” she said. Asked if she was calling for the police to give up the information immediately, Altolaguirre said, “I have faith the United States justice system.” [MORE]