John R. Grasso is an attorney in Providence and former police officer.

State Sen. Ana Quezada has a bad taste in her mouth with the way the police treated her daughter, and she seems to be using her elected position to express herself. In The Journal article “Lawmaker questions LEOBOR proposal” (News, May 25), Senator Quezada makes false assertions and relies on mistaken assumptions to support her rejection of a potential compromise between lawmakers and police over changes to the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.

Her second-hand experience with her daughter’s arrest and conviction seems to be at the heart of it.

The legislature and the police apparently have reached a compromise to replace the three-officer LEOBOR hearing panel with a panel of three officers and two "civilians." Senator Quezada insists that including two members from the community will not make any difference “because it’s three police and they’re going to go in favor of the police. They’re not going to go in favor of the public.”

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Senator Quezada pins the police against the public and the public against the police in a LEOBOR hearing. She presumes that the public wants the accused police officer to be found responsible for wrongdoing even before the hearing begins and evidence is presented. That is simply not the case.

Senator Quezada wrongly asserts that the three police officers on a LEOBOR hearing panel are always going to side with the accused police officer. I cannot imagine what facts the senator has to support that claim. I have been on the LEOBOR scene for a while, and I have never known all three LEOBOR hearing officers to cast a unanimous decision. Never.

Every LEOBOR panel is composed of one police officer chosen by the accused officer, another chosen by the police chief, and a third, known as the “neutral.” The neutral is supposed to be a compromise between the accused officer and the police chief. In my experience, the officer chosen by the police chief always comes out on the side of the chief regardless of the evidence. On the other hand, I have witnessed on more than one occasion the accused officer’s selection find the accused officer responsible. The neutral has gone either way.

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Finally, Senator Quezada asserts that police officers who know about other police officers lying “stay quiet.” Is that preposterous notion something the senator knows for a fact? For self-serving reasons, the police are the most critical of their own profession. Good police resent the very few who bring disrespect and disfavor on their profession. In my career as a police officer and a legal representative for police officers, police almost never hesitate to call out one of their own. Unlike Senator Quezada’s bald assertions, that is a fact supported by every LEOBOR hearing that I have been a part of.

The senator believes “most of the time police protect police.” On that assertion, we agree. When a bad cop comes before a LEOBOR hearing, it has been my experience 100% of the time that police officers on the hearing panel protect the police profession — not the police officer — by calling the evidence what it is.

If Senator Quezada is allowing her frustration with her daughter’s experience and her unsupported beliefs to guide her conduct as a lawmaker, perhaps she should do the responsible thing by honoring her conflict of interest and recuse herself from this important decision. If she is predisposed against the police, as she insists the police are predisposed against the public, isn’t that her duty to the community?

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: State Sen. Ana Quezada pins the police against the public and the public against the police in a recent State House hearing.