Attorney General Eric Holder, right, speaks last week with Juan Carter, third from left, Ajay Benton and Teny Gross, left, of the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence.
The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer
PROVIDENCE — Jose Rodriguez could hardly believe how his life had changed.
There he was last week, in a conference room at the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, fielding questions from U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, the highest-ranking prosecutor in the nation and the first man of color to serve in that position. Holder wanted to know how Rodriguez and other street workers with violent pasts worked to change their ways and make the streets safer in Providence and Central Falls.
Rodriguez, who works in Olneyville, one of the city’s high-crime districts, knows violence. He was convicted of attempted murder for shooting a man in North Providence over a dispute involving his sister. And how much time did he spend at the Adult Correctional Institutions?
“Four years, two months, two weeks and 12 hours,” he said with a smile. “I got out on Jan. 27, 2010.”
Rodriguez was joined at the conference table by Sal Monteiro Jr. and Ajay Benton, also ex-convicts who have worked at the institute for years. Monteiro, who drove a getaway car in a Pawtucket murder, serves as the organization’s nonviolence training coordinator, while Benton, who was once locked up on drug charges, is the director of the street workers program.
Holder spent about 45 minutes meeting with the street workers and touring the institute’s newly refurbished brick building on Oxford Street in South Providence. His visit, which was closed to the media, was lost in a news conference following the tour when Holder was peppered with questions about the Justice Department’s policy on dealing with dispensaries that sell medical marijuana.
Rodriguez, Monteiro and Benton found Holder’s interest in the nonviolence programs and his candor refreshing. They said he wanted to know everything about the gang problem in Providence and recent shootings and murders (Providence murders for 2009 and 2010 totaled 39). He also was intrigued at how the institute was practicing civil-rights philosophies touted by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
“He really was trying to pick our brains and find out what we do,” Benton said. “He would like to duplicate what we do in other cities.”
The institute and its team of street workers rove the city to settle disputes among rival street gangs and young people who are prone to violence. Their mission also takes them to the Adult Correctional Institutions where they speak to prisoners and try to change their ways and get them to accept the philosophy of nonviolence.
They also report to local hospitals when someone is shot to try to calm down warring factions and avoid possible acts of retribution.
Rodriguez said he saw the light after he was denied parole. He said he started taking prison classes on nonviolence and somewhere along the way, he bought in to the theory. The transformation helped him land a paying job as a street worker, a dangerous job, but an important one to quell escalating youth violence.
The street workers felt comfortable being around Holder. He grew up in the Bronx, was raised in Queens and played freshman basketball at Columbia University. After graduating from law school, he worked for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section.
Holder has seen plenty of violence. He served as Superior Court judge in Washington, D.C., until he stepped down to become the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. There, his office prosecuted powerful drug gangs that were moving crack cocaine and killing their rivals.
At the time, Washington had one of the highest murder rates in the nation.
Teny O. Gross, the institute’s executive director, said arranging Holder’s visit had been in the works for years. He cited U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a supporter of the institute for more than a decade, and Col. Dean M. Esserman, the Providence police chief, for playing crucial roles.
Both men have known Holder for a long time.
In January, Gross said, he traveled to the Justice Department in Washington and met with the staff of Laurie Robinson, an assistant attorney general who accompanied Holder to Providence.
Gross beamed with pride when he saw the street workers, many of whom were once considered society’s castoffs, having a discussion with Holder, “the symbol of justice in the United States.”
“That was a thing of beauty,” he said.
bmalinow@projo.com
