PROVIDENCE — The lengthy court battle of a Providence police sergeant accused of kicking and punching a handcuffed man ended Friday when the sergeant pleaded no contest to a charge of simple assault in Superior Court, Providence.
Superior Court Judge Melissa Darigan accepted Sgt. Joseph Hanley’s plea and ordered him to serve a year of probation. She also imposed a no contact order.
Prior to the plea, Hanley had faced a third trial in the aftermath of both a mistrial in an appellate proceeding in Superior Court earlier this year and a guilty finding in District Court in 2021.
“At some point, practicality has to take its rightful place in the equation to bring about some level of finality,” said the sergeant’s lawyer, Michael J. Colucci.
Prosecutors asked Darigan to send Hanley to the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston for 90 days and to suspend the remainder of what would have been a one year prison sentence, said a spokesman for Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, Timothy Rondeau.
In addition to that term, they also asked Darigan to give Hanley one year of probation, a no contact order and 100 hours of community service, Rondeau said.
Colucci said afterward that Hanley’s sentence is “consistent with what ought to be handed out to a first-time offender.”
A long legal process dating back to early days of pandemic
After a bench trial in District Court in 2021, Judge Brian Goldman found that Hanley had kicked and punched a 28-year-old man, Rishod Gore, as he lay handcuffed on a Federal Hill sidewalk in April 2020.
That initial trial came in the wake of 2020 protests, riots and unrest across the country following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
At that point, prosecutors had dismissed the charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest that Gore had faced at the time of his arrest.
On the witness stand, Gore wore a “Black Lives Matter” mask.
Rishod Gore, shown testifying Feb. 25, “was assaulted while he was handcuffed prone, down, his face against the pavement,” Special Assistant Attorney General Michael S. McCabe said in seeking a 90-day prison term Thursday. “He was defenseless.”
Colucci argued that the sergeant’s actions were within use-of-force standards and warranted to counter Gore’s “active resistance.”
When Goldman ruled in the matter, he said Hanley had kicked Gore in the side, punched him, put his knee on Gore’s head and bounced up and down, kicked him in the head and walked on his legs.
He said he found each of the five strikes to Gore on April 19 “unreasonable, unnecessary and unlawful” under the law and sentenced the sergeant to one year’s probation.
Sgt. Joseph Hanley
Hanley’s second trial, with a jury in Superior Court, ended differently. Darigan found that the jury was deadlocked. She declared a mistrial.
Sergeant still faces administrative proceeding
Hanley has been suspended since 2020, and without pay since late 2020, but he remains a Providence police officer.
The closure of Hanley’s court case unfreezes pending action by the city to fire him through an administrative proceeding governed by the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.
Hanley has worked as a martial arts instructor, as he has through much of his career, Colucci said Friday.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence officer accused of assaulting handcuffed man makes plea