The Lugo Solution

23 May 2023

Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez

Providence Police Department

325 Washington Street

Providence, RI  02903

Dear Chief Perez:

I hope this message finds you well.  I always feel safe in the city even when I’m 12 stepping folks in Kennedy Plaza.  That’s a credit to your team.

I am writing to you today about Jeann Lugo.  I think we have finally come up with a free market solution that works.  At the same time, unintended consequences are kept to a minimum.

Please keep in mind that this is not about a lack of respect for the Police.  I am not a Defund the Police type.  I do not care if LEOBOR ever gets overturned since the free market is available to me.  I know that the 77% of police who aren’t racists/bigots/sexists/rapists/creeps deserve our total support even if 23% of law enforcement officers, which was 8% before Trump, fit into those categories.  It should be noted that it is not 23% across all Departments.  The creeps tend to cluster under creepy management.

If I didn’t respect you, I would have filed a Campaign Finance Complaint against your Department due to the judge’s original ruling that Officer Lugo was conducting “Police Business” at the time of the assault.  If that’s true, since Mr. Lugo’s original intent was to campaign against women while denying their body autonomy, then it can be argued that your Department extended to him an improper in-kind contribution.  I respect you too much to take the lid off that Pandora’s Box.

This is simply about Mr. Lugo being undesirable in an educated society.  He believes women should be jailed for making choices about their bodies.  I do not want such people in our community and often use the free market when I discover them.  He hit someone because someone else grabbed him.  This indicates he has a lack of judgment.  He continued and assaulted a black woman who was his opponent.  Unless he’s totally clueless, how could he not know who she was??  If he’s totally clueless, we do not want him on the force for being clueless.  If he wasn’t totally clueless, we do not want him on the force because he is a sexist and a racist.  Please note that these things are true whether he committed a crime or not.

The problem is, whenever you take action against a “bad” Officer, someone will copycat those actions against a “good officer”.  This is a conundrum that bothers my conscience a lot.  In the case of Officer Lugo, I think we finally have a solution.  If he arrests anybody, or is part of any investigation, paid legal counsel will be provided to the defendants.  The lawyers know we want things dragged out, expensive for the state, lots of publicity, and put the actions of Officer Lugo under a microscope every single time.  We will find ways to make sure that any jury involved in a Lugo case will see the video of the assault somehow.  We may have to get tricky with that one but tricky is fun.

I promise that no laws will be violated.  We will run ads on Craigslist and elsewhere on the internet to discover witnesses and defendants he has interacted with.  We will also file tons of APRAs looking for his cases.  So should you hear that APRAs are being filed continuously about your Department, you can surmise that it’s us looking to talk with Lugo involved folks.  That night can’t be the first time he interacted improperly with a black person or a woman (spoiler alert).

Therefore, from now on kindly treat everyone he arrests or “interviews” as if they have counsel.  The plan is to make that a continuous reality.  The hope is the continuous attention and micromanagement of his affairs will make the job less enjoyable.  Let’s not forget – two people pushing and shoving causes him to become so rattled that he hit a woman.  Imagine what lawyers continuously looking into his affairs will do.

The worst part of all of this was the precedent that was created.  Now, any Officer in a political race can bring two buddies to a political rally.  If the two buddies get into a wrestling match, the Officer can hit people they don’t like.  We need to come up with a Legislative solution for that one.  If we get a State Representative to file a solution, you probably should be expected to testify.  Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m sure you’ll handle that well.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Thank you for your time and consideration.

In Hoc Signo,

Robert T. Oliveira

Warwick, RI

401-391-6402