The Cop Who Took On Flock

When the article appeared, the first text Pichardo received came from another officer.

“I want to congratulate you on your testicular fortitude,” it read. The officer added that he was proud of Pichardo for doing what he believed was right. Then he warned him: The brass was furious.

Pichardo says many officers supported what he had said to the Valley Breeze. Others, mostly older officers, viewed him as a traitor. One officer asked how he still had a job. Around the station, he was told that officers were calling him “Valley Breeze” behind his back. One sergeant, he says, told him he should quit.

Within weeks, the warnings began to look prescient.

Police internal investigations are not criminal cases. Their purpose is generally narrower—to determine whether an officer has violated a policy, code of conduct, or general order. Investigators interview witnesses, review body-camera or surveillance footage, collect reports and emails, and question the officer at the center of the complaint. The interview is typically recorded, and the officer is often accompanied by a union representative.

The process generates paper. A complaint. A notice of investigation. Lists of possible policy violations. Interview recordings and investigators’ notes. Findings, disciplinary recommendations, and notices of punishment.

Before the Valley Breeze article appeared, Pichardo’s disciplinary record appears to have consisted of a single incident: In 2021, while working a police detail at a production of the musical Annie, he refused a vendor’s request that he wear a face mask, and he received a written reprimand and a two-week suspension. After Pichardo spoke out against Flock, he received notice of an internal investigation into his conduct on October 25, 2023. It would be the first of many.

The department’s complaint, which originated from Chief Tina Goncalves, stated flatly that Pichardo had spoken to a newspaper without prior authorization, had undermined the authority of the police department and its chief, and had suggested that information collected by Flock cameras could be used improperly. His comments, the notice said, were “liable to cause harm to the reputation of the department and affect the impact on the community.”

The potential violations included the department’s mission statement, code of ethics, media-relations policy, and a rule labeled “Criticism & Malicious Gossip.”

Pichardo was ordered to appear at the Office of Professional Standards, a basement-level room in the Pawtucket police headquarters. Across from him, he says, were a lieutenant and a sergeant. A union representative sat beside him but said little.

The interview lasted somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, Pichardo recalls. The questions were straightforward at first. Had he spoken to the reporter? He had. Had he done so without authorization from the department? He had. Why?

Pichardo gave much the same answer he had given the newspaper: The cameras were tracking people across the city, and the public had a right to know how they were being used. Pichardo says the lieutenant disagreed. Not every police tactic, he told Pichardo, was the public’s business. Departments did not disclose every method they used or every form of surveillance available to them.