Well, the world has by now heard the raid on the tribal reservation of the Narragansett Indian Nation by the Rhode Island State Police. With tedious predictability those whose icon is love of politics are busy flailing their fickle fingers of flaming flatus at one another in hope of putting their own culpability to the torch. The Rhode Island State Police are to their great credit keeping mum, soldiers one and all who it seems are misused reasons utterly mundane and to do with money.
The Rhode Island State Police were founded about the 1930’s are were many other State Police Departments. The widow of Colonel Chaffee, founder of this long respected force just recently passed away and timely indeed was her passing, a life long and full, spared the pain of seeing her late husband’s finely polished instrument of law so stupidly misused, a half-cocked attack motivated by half-broasted law.
Colonel Walter E. Stone served as Superintendent of this well respected elite force from about Era of Ike until the Era of Bubba. Colonel Stone was known as a kind father, good friend, and harder than his namesake when it came to with bear-like perserverance identifying, tracking, marrying the bad buys to their well deserved spouse, Lady Justice. Walter Stone was legendary, founding a detective division devoted to making the lives of mobsters absolutely ‘interesting’ in full essence of the Chinese curse. The Colonel was not one to trifle with young gits and their pranks, nor were his men ever known to shoot dogs out of a sense of ‘concern for their personal safety’ as has become the fashion amongst the hundred-dollar hairjob officer steroids of recent vintage. Walter Stone ran his department from a beautifully restored farmhouse about fifteen miles west of the capital city of Providence, on the old turnpike leading to Connecticut’s eastern hinterlands, in a small town called North Scituate. Situated literally at a distance from the capital city of Providence, Colonel Stone’s rural compound was figuratively as well disconnected from the internecine, miscegenative, byzantine intrigues long associated with what some consider to be the Palermo of the Americas.
“The Rhode Island State Police don’t play the political end of things”, spoke one of the Colonel’s men about 1978, and indeed all were inclined to agree. One’s political enemy was not fair game for the State Police, only serious, practicing, unrepentant criminals need fear the Colonel’s interest in their professional pursuits. Providence was long rumored to the host city for corporate headquarters of the New England Mafia, whose President and CEO was Worcester, Massachusetts’ native son, one Raymond Loreda Salvatore Patriarca, Sr. and thus the Colonel’s natural enemy.
It was said of Mr. Patriarca, known by many as simply “Raymond” that for every untimely employee termination he authorized he prevented a thousand. Revocation of one’s living permit usually followed a prolonged period of counselling, multiple second chances, and ‘caveat predator’ advisories. Hotheads who strode into the spartan offices of Mr. Patriarca demanding mayhem be committed against one so bold as to cut him off in traffic were sternly yet kindly counseled by Raymond that but for the grace of his authority there would go one and all who allowed vanity to supercede their otherwise fine reasoning ability. As such, it was said by some that Mr. Patriarca and the Colonel had an unspoken grudging respect for one another. For every unsightly ‘shallow-grave-earthen-parachute’ visited upon an incorrigible crook through which the Colone’s men had to sweep, Mr. Patriarca by his tenured standing saved Colonel the annoyance of slogging through countless crime scenes.
The Decade of Lucifer seems to have wrought many changes, some feared at its outset, some observed during the slow and irrevocable spiral into Dante’s third ring, some only now coming perhaps to the fore.
The Narragansett Indian Tribe was officially recognized in court decisions in 1978 and 1983 as a sovereign nation. Located about thirty miles to the east of world-famous Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, the Narragansett Reservation boasts not of the opulence of their tribal brothers. The tribe is made up of rather striking individuals known to many a local educator as fine students, decent strong men, dignified. The tribe has for about a decade or so been thus far unsuccessfully lobbying for a casino of its own, perhaps on tribal lands in Charlestown, Rhode Island or more likely in the Town of West Warwick about twenty five miles to the north of the reservation.
During the early 1990’s Governor Bruce Sundlun looked with favor upon the Narragansett’s proposed venture, indeed the success of Foxwoods and the one hundred million dollars of tax revenue paid to the State of Connecticut was hard to overlook. So why not keep the locals local with a casino in their own state?
Other interests, as they say, may well take precedence. Jai Alai, a tropical shuttle ball game more commonly found in Miami and points south was struggling along in Newport, former home to the rich and now merely statistics gaggle millionaires of the last century. Of course, the interests of the state’s surviving dog track must be protected. And the success of Foxwoods and its neighbor to the west, accross the Thames river, the Mashantucket Casino is again hard to overlook. The Mashantucket casino was seen as a short-liver when opened, redundant, unable to compete with Foxwoods. Located on the site of the former United Nuclear Company the Mashantucket Casino is performing just admirably, thank you. Ironically, United Nuclear’s former Charlestown, Rhode Island plant was the scene of the only fatality of the nuclear power industry in America, an interesting story framed in summer’s rose steam heat, some thirty-eight years ago.
Governor Sundlun passed the baton to Lincoln Almond, a former federal prosecutor somewhat less than enchanted with a legitimate gambling casino lurking about his state. Governer Almond in turn recently yielded by virtue of term limits to Governor Carcieri, he formerly of Cookson America, a company about whom none can seem to discern precisely that which it does. Prior to that, Governor Carcieri was a school teacher, and his style of reportedly speaking to the press corps as if they were half-wit four year olds in constant peril of ‘missing something’ has ruffled the feathers of the Ocean State’s fourth estate.
This weekend, as reported by papers ranging from the local Providence Journal ( projo.com) to the Sfax, Tunisia Journal and Constitution, the Rhode Island State Police staged a raid upon the Narragansett Indian Tribal Reservation in Charlestown. Seems the Tribe had been selling cigarettes and not charging the Rhode Island sales tax.Governor Carcieri was conveniently out of state in Ohio, long known since the Kent State days as bastion of civil liberties. Governor Carcieri to his credit admits authorizing the service of a warrant based upon the cigarrette tax offenses, he is adamant that he ordered the State Police to stand down upon first indication of la violencia.
The Governor in tradition of his former corporado employers is said by some to be saving face by taking full responsibility yet ‘ throwing the State Police under the bus’. Chief Tribal Sachem Matthew Thomas and several other tribal members were arrested in a melee seemingly instigated by the state police who according to some witnesses, ‘came out of the woods where they had been hiding.’ Flack jackets and all according to some, ‘officer ski mask’ as would say ‘voice of hate on shortwave’ Alex Jones. How sad indeed when so-called conspiracy kooks are yet again proven to be correct.
Several cigarette shop customers were violently thrown to the ground by the State Police, according to those present. Again, Indian Tribal members were slammed about and all for essentially a low-rent white-collar alleged offense. The Governor stated he was outraged that the Indians were flouting the law. And this from a former corporate executive, as would say Vichy Prefect Louis, “I’m shocked, shocked!” The Governor initially stated he was outraged that the Indians stated they would drop their long fought crusade for a casino if he would grant them their already extant right to sell cigarettes. How can a former businessman and corporate exec be outraged by what is on its face a simple bargaining point? Why the overstatement? Just what lurks beneath the surface in all of this? The barter of so-called ‘outrageous” demands is the essence of successful commerce.
The violent pre-emptive raid smacks of a totalitarian hired goon squad, sort of a primitive corporate G-2 whose antics would make Lider Maximo’s saliva encrusted beard glisten with paternalistic pride. But this is still America, as even Phil Donahue is often wont to say. And these over the top pyrotechnics have no place in a supposedly tolerant, diversity conscious, culturally aware society. Unless perhaps your happen to be an American Indian, tribal inhabitant of a sovereign nation as recognized by the laws of this land. Then perhaps you are fair game for what appears to be more of a business smack-down than a legitimate effort at law enforcement.
Colonel Stone is well to be amongst the deceased, the spectacle of his men dusting it up with coat and tie clad Native Americans in some Flip Top Box Donnybrook would prove too much. He might lift the red phone in his Scituate command post and place a call to old nemesis la bunanima (The Good Soul) Raymond, if only to express a longing for the days in which real police chased real bad guys, each whole-souledly devoted to their respective and diametrically opposite professions. Raymond perhaps might express a winsome longing for an era when cops upon peril of their own lives faced down with some of ‘the boys’, real criminals proudly admissive of heinous offenses rather than bureaucratic noncompliance.
Now you think they’d all know better. After all, the State of New York battled the Mohawk nation over cigarette sales throughout the eighties and nineties. in 1997 the New York courts held that the state could tax cigarette sales. In the face of consumer demand and fierce opposition from a long united Indian brotherhood, the state elected to do otherwise. Look, it’s not nice to kick about so-called minorities, especially those to whom prosperity has proven elusive, best efforts notwithstanding. This is much the same story of the Foxwoods Casino. The Pequot tribe had tried everything by way of commercial venture in order to become economically self-sustaining. Only the casino proved successful. Perhaps armed with that knowledge, those who wish to keep all the oil for their own feathers persist in denying the Narragansett Tribe what is perceived to be its court granted business rights.
There is another dynamic in play. The Rhode Island State Police is currently presided over by its Superintendent, one Colonel Steven Pare. His predecessor and Colonel Stone’s successor was Edmund Culhane. Colonel Culhane’s mild mannered exterior of equanimity concealed to all but criminals the same fiery dislike of injustice, and Edmund Culhane retired well liked and respected by all. Colonel Pare seems to be carrying on the tradition of his predecessors and indeed his own father, former Detective Commander Edward D. Pare, a man whose name caused general dyspepsia when mentioned amongst the crminal practitioners of the Ocean State. To glimpse even a file photo of Commander Pare was to be drawn to his eyes, something good cops and Navy Seals among others are trained to do. You look into a man’s eye’s with discernment and you will read him better than could any smart card. Detective Pare’s occulars bespoke of intelligence, fearsome desire to nail the bad guys, and a persistence bordering upon the perpetual. In short, a crook’s worst gastritis attack personified. Like father like son is the word around the state, so why the fracas?
Colonel Pare the Younger seems well to know the difference between political opponents, those labeled as ‘non-compliant’ and true societal perils. Yet there seems to be if not a specific group at least some strain of floating consciousness which from time to time misuses otherwise impartial law enforcement resources for its own gain.
This entire practice of misuse of public trust for private gain is of some interest to this unworthy scribe who has for the past interminable years been quietly reviewing a matter of some concern to a family. Seems that at least two patient deaths, the misappropriations of massive assets, inventive lies to serve as cover for the perps via slandering the rightful heirs have been among the prominent features of this mess. This wretched slave to syntax has from time to time written letters to some involved in this little intrigue involving over fifteen million dollars and a life denied the rightful inheritors and all executed in a spirit of callous dismissal.
One of the principals at the center of this coraeolis maelstrom in a coprador is a fancy-pantaloon barrister whose pretensions to Old World nobility have for the moment thrilled one of the victims into stuporous compliance with the demands of various parasites always found surrounding the vainglorious rich at life’s pagan sunset. Abogado Galleazzo has regaled his believers with tales of his ancestral noblemen, whose resemblance to true nobility is that of Hitler’s to Prussian Aristocracy, and perhaps that of the Yorkshire Ripper to Her Majesty the Queen.
By way of reply to routine inquiry on behalf of the wronged, this skinny-digit prevaricator employed the usual methods of dodges, deflections, denials, illegal threats of meaningless court actions on behalf of non-clients for unspecified offenses. Failing that, a nice touch, as Aviator Maximo so posited, contact the Rhode Island State Police. Now this was lawyerly posturing at its finest. After all, this writer is about fifteen hundred miles out of the jurisdiciton of that fine agency, as well, writing letters of inquiry in manner of one’s published style may be unpleasant to the culpable but illegal it is not.
A call was received from one purporting to be from that fine police agency. In rapid fire terse and clearly apprehensive – as if put up to an unpleasant and illegal task – tones this voice instructed this lowly listener to Cuban Rhumbas to ‘knock it the fxxx off with Galeazzo, he’s gonna file charges, civil suits, restraining orders.” This worthless dilletante of the dialectic got off two shots by return fire – did the caller know there was a disabled person involved in this, and did the caller know there was at least one patient death? By way of scattershot repetitive return fire, came the witty “I don’ give a sxxx about that, knock it the fxxx off with Galeazzo.”
Never provoke a curious person, so goes the saying. Better to bait a barroom berserker than one given over to terminal curiosity, one who lives by the bromide that when ‘you think you are being unfair, cruel, unusually harsh and cynical in your judgement about a situation or individuals do stand down from guilt. Forge ahead, ratchet up your suspscions. Let your unconscious mind flow freely, its trying to warn you of things too easily dismissed by rational thought.
Indeed nothing further came of this call save for further discovery and dissemination of findings by this slave to syntax. It does seem that an institution as incorruptible, as legendarily pristine, strong, trusted as the Rhode Island State Police can be misused against the decent. At times a messenger for a family subverted by career parasitical liars and their strange HMO/Ivy League bedmates and and other junctures the hard working long suffering members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe find themselves recipients of unduly harsh actions clearly designed not by the police but perhaps by their misusers to convey a message more akin to stereotypical mob threats.
What an odd time in which to find oneself. At the outset to the last decade the word ‘privatize’ was bandied about as the bandaid for all woes. Marry government to the corporation and the citizen would benefit. In the smaller story here, an Ivy league University has publicly taken money from possibly forged over trusts and denies having accepted donations at all. An HMO accepts massive and inappropriate donations from a near centennarian whose affect is telling particularly to medical experts, the donation is of course publicly touted as being for purposes of altruism when in fact some see it as convenient putty to fill unsavory holes in the woodwork of its bookkeeping. The sweet barrister chairs a committee which ensures judges will no matter how meretricious the matter, always find in his favor. This group of the prominent, the powerful, the wealthy and learned behave more as high-functional predators whose trump card in face of legitimate inquiry seems to be misusing police resources in order to cover their own transgressions by directing attention to the innocent.
The greater matter is much the same. Cigarette smoking is a vile death dealing habit. Yet for the moment they are still legal and the Narragansetts wish to sell them on their sovereign lands as seems to be their right. They are known for their generosity in the face of adversity, their members have long been a most constructive part of the State’s political and cultural heritage. Princess Redwing is a member of the State’s hall of fame, her descendants proudly working presently for the betterment of the tribe. Not exactly a criminal enterprise deserving of ski-mask raids. Raymond and his nemesis, Colonel Stone had boundaries, the Colonel would no more storm alleged Mob headquarters than would Mr. Patriarca show disrespect to the Colonel. Privatization unfortunately mandates the dissolution of boundaries.
In this instance the dissolution has brought pain to a tribe known for its long and hard efforts in pursuit of success, a tribe which indeed did nothing to antagonize the State Police. The State Police by refraining from CYA fingerpointing are maintaing their deserved dignity in misuse’s turgid wake, a tall order that.
The Narragansetts deserve far better, as do all those unjustly treated be they amongst the living or otherwise. Apparently there is a growing consciousness by which the mutating of societal protectors into attack dogs of the rich and connected seems to be gaining acceptance. Perhaps now that the wrong people have been hit the public, senses acutely attuned for detection of injustice, will take note. That which commenced with the shooting, suffocation, and immolation of an obscure religious cult a decade ago may hopefully cease with the realization that different from the former victims, the Narragansetts have untold ‘brothers’ who take a dim view of what they clearly perceive to be government’s gratuitous bullying.
Far from indigent as goes the long incorrect perception, many tribal ‘brothers’ arrived from about the country in their Mercedes, intent upon at long last burying the long lived stupid notion that one can still act out one’s antisocial fantasies in public, provided the target is just an Indian. The unfortunate incident of late has struck some as belonging less in New England and more in the Jim Crow South, save for the fact that the South is infinetly more hospitable to those perceived as somehow different and indeed has long been posessed of an intolerance for bullies, no matter how sweetly are cut their fancy suits.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”