​Communication Breakdown

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WARWICK - The family of a teenager with Down Syndrome is suing the city and its police department, claiming multiple officers responded to an anonymous tip that their son was threatening to shoot his father with a pistol after suffering years of abuse.

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The so-called swatting incident came in through a tip program the department had implemented several months earlier, prompting 10 Warwick police officers to converge on the teenager’s home. They came brandishing assault rifles and guns, using excessive force and “aggressively detaining” the teenager, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.

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It names Police Chief Brad Connor, a detective and a handful of city officials as defendants.

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Investigators later found that the tip - which made it sound like it had come from the boy with Down Syndrome - had actually been sent by another teenager with significant developmental disabilities. He was on the radar of the police department, having made previous false claims on social media over the course of many months against the teenager with Down Syndrome.

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The teenager who was the target of the swatting incident is described in the suit only as John Doe. And the boy accused of using the tip line to make allegations against him is known as Joseph Roe. It describes him as “emotionally disturbed.”

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“The practice of “SWAT”ing is a dangerous trend that is harming our communities,” Sam Kennedy-Smith, an attorney who filed the lawsuit on the family’s behalf, said in a statement to The Hummel Report. “We hope that this suit begins to combat this trend by raising awareness around the various stakeholders, including technology vendors and others who need to respond differently to protect the public safety and public good.”

 

Kennedy-Smith says in the lawsuit the May 2023 incident never should have happened because the parents of the teenager who was targeted had multiple contacts with The Warwick Police Department over several months, alerting them to relentless and vile allegations the other teenager was making against their son. It is unclear from the lawsuit whether the two boys knew each other.

 

The other teenager used a program Warwick Police implemented in early 2023 called Tip411, created by a company based on Minnesota. Warwick is one of a handful of communities in Rhode Island that uses the program: it allows for people to contact the police department through a phone app and notify officers of situations or problems they believe need police attention.

 

The dispatcher forwards tips to officers on duties, depending on the severity of the allegation. The department says on its website that Tip411 is for non-emergency situations. Users can either text to a number on the website, download an app, or send a message online without being identified.

 

On its own website, the company that provides the third-party access to Warwick Police through Tip411 touts the service, saying it can help law enforcement agencies, schools and community coalitions fighting “drug and alcohol abuse.” The company that created the program, Citizen Observer LLC, is also named as a defendant.

 

“On its face, it’s a very good program,” Warwick Police Chief Brad Connor told the Hummel Report during an interview last week. “People sometimes don’t want to rat on their neighbors that are drug dealers or talk about a crime that’s been committed. So it’s an avenue for people to report crime.”

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Connor declined to respond to the specifics of the lawsuit, saying he had not been served or had a chance to speak about it with the city’s attorneys.

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But he did talk about the early days of the Tip411 program. “We’ve had our struggles with it,” the chief acknowledged. “The whole premise of Tip411 is it’s anonymous. Like really anonymous. We can’t (contact) Tip411 and say ‘hey, by the way, we really need to know who this person is.’”

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Connor said the initial cost of the program was picked up by the Kent County Prevention Coalition, which describes itself as providing substance use prevention strategies, mental health resources. Connor said the organization sees the Tip411 app as a helpful tool.

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“The learning curve was monitoring and dispatching calls,” the chief said. “We can’t take anything lightly. If somebody texts and says there’s a guy with a gun at this location right now and says he’s going to kill somebody, we can’t look at it and say:  well it came from Tip411. We have to respond like a true emergency or it doesn’t work.”

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The chief said the department received more than 700 tips in 2024. When a tip comes in, the department can communicate with the person through a chat screen that is similar to texting, but the tipster remains anonymous. The tip is then relayed to an officer in the field.

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Other police chiefs we spoke with said the Tip411 program has been useful.  “It’s where we are in society today,” said East Providence Police Chief Chris Francesconi. “Not everyone wants to pick up the phone and call. But they will text us.”

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Bristol Police Chief Kevin Lynch said his department also got a grant from the local prevention coalition in the East Bay to begin using the system five years ago. It renewed the contract last summer for 3 ½ years at a cost of just under $15,000.

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“A lot of times there’s chatter going on before something happens at the schools. I wanted to provide the kids a platform where they could provide a tip anonymously,” the chief said.

 

According to the lawsuit, within days of the Warwick Police launching Tip411, which included a press release distributed to local media outlets, the boy accused of the swatting incident used the tip line to accuse the teenager with Down Syndrome of sexually abusing his family dog. The police contacted the accused teenager’s father, who explained the complaint was false.

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And, the suit adds, a Warwick Police officer “indicated that the plaintiffs’ home would be flagged or a caution would be placed upon the home given the prank call.”

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The father met with officers three days later to discuss more tips the police had received, as well as social media posts, filing a police report and meeting with a detective the next day. Two days later the father met with the resource officer and administrators at the teenager’s school to set up a safety plan.

“Between February and May 2023, Plaintiffs repeatedly communicated with and provided to (the police) information and evidence about the conduct towards JOHN DOE and repeatedly requested that the (the department) investigate such conduct and take action to protect JOHN DOE. During that time period, the (police) failed to act to investigate….complaints and determine the identity of JOSEPH ROE,” the lawsuit states.

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It culminated on May 25, 2023 with the swatting incident. The message the police received via Tip411 said: “I am a seventeen-year-old (and named the teenager). I have a pistol and will shoot and kill my father with at 3:02 p.m. He’s abused me for years and I’ve had enough.” And it gave the teenager’s address.

Despite the department being aware of the previous allegations, 10 officers arrived -  weapons drawn -  to find the teenager in athletic gear on his front lawn. The lawsuit says they repeatedly asked him about killing his father.

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The parents immediately came outside to speak with the officers and their son was eventually released. “The officers inexplicably claimed that JOHN DOE had made a phone call to dispatch,” the suit asserts.

The lawsuit asserts that the chief failed to train his officers properly to use the Tip411 system, and that the teenager with Down Syndrome has been permanently affected by the incident and is scared of any interaction with police.

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The lawsuit adds that the boy’s father met with a detective at Warwick Police who acknowledged that the other teenager “had utilized the Tip411 program and that the anonymous app had been ‘nothing but a problem.’”

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The chief, in a follow up email to The Hummel Report, said that Tip411 is set to renew at the end of 2025 for another two years, at a cost of $10,200. “If the city were to take over the expenses for the next contract we would likely not renew, however that decision would be made in conjunction with the city administration,” Chief Connor wrote.