Providence attorney takes helm of civilian police oversight panel.

Byline: Barry Bridges

Jose F. Batista assumed his role as executive director of the Providence External Review Authority with a pragmatic outlook on the work he would be undertaking for the recently reconstituted board charged with "civilian oversight" of the city's police officers.

"Every sector that has a lot of power in our society has regulations, whether it is banks or the food and drug industry," the 30-year-old Providence attorney says.

Police departments are no different, according to Batista, except that they actually have more power in the community.

"With that power comes much responsibility, and that's where supervision and oversight comes in," he says. "One of the things that I want to do in this job is to deconstruct the idea that being involved in police oversight means you're anti-police."

Batista thinks the nine-member PERA board will likely find itself at the intersection of the country's long discussion on the dividing line between security and civil liberties.

"It has been really remarkable, because when you first hear what the community is saying and what the police are saying, it seems like everybody is on the same page and there's almost an inclination to ask why PERA even exists," he adds. "But as more time goes on and more situations arise, you start to realize that people are viewing things from different perspectives. The police are looking at it with security of the utmost importance, while the community is questioning civil liberties."

And Batista points out that the country has been weighing the sometimes competing interests of liberty and security since the 1790s with the passage of the Bill of Rights.

"I don't pretend to have the answers, but that's how long this debate has been taking place," he says.

Social justice passion

A 2014 graduate of Roger Williams University School of Law, Batista arrives in his new position with the experience gained from several years of public interest work. For the last five years he has represented indigent criminal defendants both as an attorney with the Rhode Island Public Defender's Office and as a sole practitioner.

He values the impact he was able to make during his one and a half years with the public defender, but

acknowledges that frustrations were inherent in the job. With heavy caseloads a hallmark of his public practice, he handled over 2,000 cases in 18 months.

"I was able to help a lot of people, but it was often overwhelming and was like drinking out of a...