Thin Blue Line

By James Treyman

This gripping novel is about former Providence Police Officer Robert Hamlin Jr and a police scandal that made national news and shook the City of Providence, the Providence Police Department and the State of Rhode Island to its core.

Inside you will learn of his first -hand accounts of the scandal OPERATION DECEPTION, the Providence Police Departments recruit training, its Field Training process and police work. This book also goes into his involvement, the process in the Rhode Island judicial system, his incarceration at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections High Security Building and subsequent release.

This is a true and gritty must read in to the darker side of law enforcement and the thin blue line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483683492

James Treyman

Native American author from the New England area. Looking to place Rhode Island on the map as a writer, screenwriter, and film director.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by James Treyman.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2013914490

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4836-8348-5

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4836-8347-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4836-8349-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is based on a true story.

Rev. date: 09/26/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Preface

61st Recruit Class

Roll Call: Day one Outlast watch (2300-0700) Roll call

Blondie

Blondie II

Field Training II

Field Training III

My brother’s keeper

BIG

Knock Knock

The Devil Answered

Conspiracy?

Big II

Breaking News

C-Block

HWOB: (Held Without Bail)W

Plea

A-Mod

Necked

The longest yard

Me to you

Preface

Forget that bullshit they taught you in the academy, that’ll get you killed out here. The two most important rules to remember are one (he points his right trigger finger in the air) we make sure we go home at the end of watch no matter what and two (he now raises his middle finger now forming a peace sign" with his hand) you NEVER RAT ON ANOTHER COP… remember that and you’ll be fine on this job.

6¹st Recruit Class

My experience in police training is subjective; I had an idea of how it would be (para military) but to what the extent I had no idea and every day started the same. The recruits would start at 0630hrs where we would gather outside of Johnson & Wales University on Ernest Street off of Allens Avenue for formation in our squads, all uniformly wearing proudly our PT gear and form up standing at attention by 0645hrs for roll call. The drill instructors called out each squad leader for report. Unless we lost a recruit via DOR (drop on request) all squad leaders reported the same response depending on which squad they represented. I was assigned to 2nd squad so my squad leader would report shouting at the top of his lungs Sir, 2nd squad all present and accounted for sir! We all stood in formation wearing our navy blue mesh shorts and those bright ass yellow t-shirts both bearing the Police Department logo with 61st Training Academy embroidered on them.

At the academy exercise wasn’t just used as a training tool, it was used equally as torture or punishment. If we didn’t do 10,000 push-ups we didn’t do one in our 22 weeks. Those who have been there recall all too easily the dreaded command given by the drill instructors get on your fuckin’ faces! and each recruit would fall into the proper leaning rest (push up) position, the mountain climbers, squat thrusts, star jumps, the carrying of desks throughout the academy, slaps in the head when you dropped a piece of equipment accidentally, the fun runs through a childs play ground or those 7 mile class runs.

The instructors all had a role in ball busting but one was a buffer between the DI’s and recruits. The DI’s all pushed the envelope with our training and at times I feel crossed the line. We had our hard asses whom were Marines and ran training as if it were at Parris Island and not at Chad Brown Street. Through the 22 weeks of training the DI’s rode our asses till week 21. By then they had gotten rid of most of the recruits they wanted to, all the exams were completed and everyone knew where they stood at graduation… or so we thought.

The training academy was like joining a college fraternity where the pledges were tortured and degraded all day every day via verbal, mental and physical abuse. The couple of events described next are just some examples that I’ve experienced firsthand as well as 44 other recruits that graduated and they are indeed true as hard as they might be to believe. On a daily basis the staff would eat some of your lunch like taking bites of your peanut butter and jelly then placing it back in your lunch bag half eaten and in my case I would wolf down the crust of the uneaten side. They would eat half of your apple and put it back in your lunch bag or take your small lunch size bag of chips and if they didn’t like them crush them to dust and leave them for us to eat, which we gladly did.

In recruit training you made a mistake no matter what and when you did you and the rest of the class would face the wrath of the staff. An example of such is when a recruit in my squad had forgotten to secure our locker at the academy so our penalty was that a staff member had defecated in a shoe box, placed it in our locker and secured the locker. After fermenting for four hours in the summer heat in a musty humid basement you can only imagine the stench and mess we had to clean up before we hungrily rushed to eat what was left of our lunches. As we sat in the lunch room we could hear the staff in their office directly across from the lunch room laughing and joking it musta been a shitty situation down there! and another would say maybe you shit heads will remember to secure your shit!

The training academy only pays minimum wage and in 2003 I believe it was about $6.00 and hour. You can only imagine people with families the sacrifice they made for 5 ½ months to provide for them, so you know each check was like gold to us. A few times the staff would toss our paychecks in to the large green trash dumpster outside the academy and we would have to go fishing through the garbage in the summer heat to retrieve our pay checks. Another time or two the DI’s sprayed CAP-STUN (department issued pepper spray) on them so we had a little reminder of them on the ride home for the weekend (I’m sure the bank tellers were pissed too!).

One time while qualifying at the range, the staff took turns shooting up our paychecks as we watched them being turned to confetti while being shredded by the full metal jacketed .40 caliber bullets. Needless to say we had to wait another week to get paid, I mean imagine going to the bank to cash or deposit a check shot full of holes!

That Summer of 2003 the Point Hope State Police raided my tribes smoke shop. The entire State of Point Hope remembers that fiasco! All that week of the raid I had to hear the white staff refer to my cousins as savages. One DI even said these are the kind of fuckin’ animals ya gonna deal with on the streets! This offended me greatly and cut deep. I couldn’t say anything in fear I would be the next recruit in their sights to bite the dust. To me they might as well used the term NIGGER. But no they wouldn’t dare do that, it would be racist right! Although my file reads I’m Narragansett Indian they were unaware of my tribal affiliation or just didn’t care. Either way their hate and bitterness really made me ambivalent about continuing my training. Knowing there would be punishment, I had decided to speak to the only minority DI Officer Reality he called himself about how I felt and it seemed the verbal onslaught of the staff had subsided… for now.

Weeks later we were at the range in Scituate for training and qualification for 3 weeks and one day the Point Hope State Police stopped by. We were in formation facing downrange at the targets when I heard that annoying lisp Treyman, front en scenter! I snapped to attention, broke rank, ran to the front of my classmates and snapped to attention shouting the correct response Sergeant, recruit Treyman reporting as ordered Sergeant! I was told to turn around to face my classmates so I executed an about face and I realized the Troopers were there watching. In my mind I thought I knew what was coming, they’d tell them I was Narragansett and bust my balls a bit but what happened next was embarrassing, racist, humiliating and offensive. I was ordered to demonstrate the Indian choke hold my people used to kick the Troopers ass during the smoke shop raid. I was furious, afraid of being kicked out if I didn’t follow orders and embarrassed. I was made to demonstrate how to choke a Trooper by extending both of my arms out in front of me and clasp my hands as if around someone’s throat. This got a roaring laugh from the Spearpoint Police Staff and few recruits but not the Troopers or myself.

I was then ordered since it was such a hot and humid day to perform a rain dance and call for the rain to come. Fighting tears I complied and did a little dance like the Icky shuffle which got a great laugh from everyone including the Troopers this time.

When done I was slapped in the back of the head hard enough to have my cover