O'Donnell says Barry best to head State Police

The Cranston Herald ·

Steven O’Donnell left no doubt that the next superintendent of Rhode Island State Police should come from within the ranks in an interview following a presentation to a joint meeting of the Warwick and East Greenwich Rotary Clubs Thursday.

O’Donnell said he is talking with Gov. Gina Raimondo about who should succeed him since his surprise announcement on Sept. 8 that he would retire as superintendent on Sept. 23.

“Lt. Col. [Kevin] Barry is definitely the best,” O’Donnell said, referring to his deputy superintendent, chief of field operations, and second in command. Barry is currently serving as acting superintendent.

O’Donnell reaffirmed the decision to retire was his own and that he was not forced to leave. He said people gravitate to conspiracy theories, but in this case he felt it best to retire at the top of his game. He said his day started at 6 a.m. and ran to midnight every day, and often seven days a week.

“So much comes at you. You question yourself a little bit,” he said. Asked during his presentation what can be done to relieve the stress of the job, he brought a laugh when he responded with a single word answer: “Retire.”

He added that he thought it important that he leave on his terms.

O’Donnell had been scheduled to speak before he announced his retirement and it was assumed he would cancel the engagement, but that wasn’t the case.

The message he brought service club members was to let law enforcement officers know you appreciate their work.

“As a group of people you need to say thanks,” he said.

O’Donnell said many people “misunderstand” what police do.

“They are called to duty for everything,” he said, listing situations from accidents to domestic arguments and cases where they could lose their lives. “It’s a profession where you have to be right 100 percent of the time.”

Referencing recent shootings of African Americans by police, he also said these are rarely clear-cut situations even though that may appear to be the case from video of the incident. He made the analogy to replays of a football play and how multiple views may show a player scoring when, in fact, as shown from another angle he is not. He’s not convinced body cameras will provide irrefutable evidence of how an incident developed because “you can miss a piece of that.”

With today’s rapid dissemination of information including photos and videos on social media, O’Donnell said law enforcement agencies can no longer take the position of releasing information on their terms.

“We put out our story as best we can,” he said.

O’Donnell feels Ferguson police badly handled the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, and that racial tension and civil unrest could have been avoided if police had handled the situation differently.

O'Donnell began his law enforcement career in 1983 as a correctional officer with the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and was assigned to both the Maximum and High Security Facilities. In 1984, he was appointed as a patrolman with the North Kingstown Police Department, and in 1986 he joined the Rhode Island State Police as a trooper.

An avid lacrosse player, O’Donnell said now that he has retired he is spending more time coaching the game.

Barry, his preferred choice as his successor, is a 23-year veteran of the force and was acting chief of the Cranston Police Department from January to October 2014. Barry has served as the executive officer of the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety and Training (DPS).