(WJAR) — Rhode Island’s attorney general is still weighing the professional punishment for one of his prosecutors caught on a now viral body camera video being arrested on a trespassing charge in Newport last week.
Peter Neronha said Tuesday Assistant Attorney General Devon Hogan Flanagan will face an unpaid suspension, if she’s kept on.
“I’m an AG. I’m an AG,” Flanagan is seen repeatedly saying in the video released by Newport police Monday, as officers gave her and a friend chances to walk away after a restaurant wanted them out.
They got arrested instead.
“Buddy, you’re going to regret this. You’re going to regret it. I’m an A,” Flanagan said as an officer shut the police cruiser door with Flanagan inside, before she could finish saying “I’m an AG” for the 12th time during the incident.
“I think it’s alcohol related,” Attorney General Neronha said on WPRO radio Tuesday with Gene Valicenti.
“I have to give it some more thought, but inexcusable behavior,” Neronha said of the potential punishment for Flanagan.
There was no answer at Flanagan’s home Tuesday when NBC10 went seeking comment, the same as Monday, after a woman who answered Flanagan’s phone number Monday told NBC 10, “no comment.”
Neronha said he met with Flanagan Monday and had her watch the body camera video of her arrest.
“She’s really remorseful. She takes responsibility,” Neronha told Valicenti on the radio.
In the video, Flanagan tells officers multiple times to turn off their body camera.
“The protocol is, your protocol is, if I ask you to turn off the body cam, you have to turn it off. That’s your protocol,” she argues at one point.
Flanagan’s attempts to get officers to shut off the body camera were wrong, says Nerhonha, whose office wrote a statewide body camera policy.
“I’m not sure what she was thinking. Clearly she was not thinking straight,” Neronha said.
As for what happens next with her job, Neronha said, “It’s just hard to find and keep capable lawyers. And I just have to think really carefully about this one. But no question there will be a strong, strong sanction here.”
“There will be a suspension without pay, if I retain her, for sure. So she’s not going to continue as if nothing happened,” Neronha told Valicenti. “She’s humiliated herself. Regardless of what happens vis a vis her employment with us, she’s going to have a long time coming back from this. It’s just really unfortunate.”
Neronha said Flanagan would apologize to Newport Police officers.
At the attorney general’s office, Flanagan argues cases in front of the state supreme court.
Her salary is $113,000.