By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
A Rhode Island grand jury is investigating an August confrontation that turned violent at a controversial jail.
Six weeks after a clash August 14 between guards at the Wyatt Detention Center and protesters opposed to the jail’s role in holding immigration detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WPRO News has learned that a grand jury has been questioning witnesses.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s office would not offer details, citing the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings, but said the outcome of the probe should be known in about a month.
Several protesters from a Jewish group protesting ICE policies and the jail’s role in holding detainees for ICE were injured when a guard drove a pickup truck into a line of protesters. Guards also used pepper spray on the crowd.
“Our principal focus is on the operation of the vehicle in question and the deployment of pepper spray,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha when he announced commencement of the investigation August 21. At that time, Neronha said his office had interviewed about 30 witnesses, and appealed to the public for video or other eyewitness accounts of the clash.
Since then, the guard captain believed to have been behind the wheel of the truck was suspended, and then resigned from the jail. The board overseeing the jail has been in talks to sell the facility, dogged by the Never Again group, which has attended board meetings, continuing to voice opposition to the jail.
