BY VINAYA SAKSENA

LINCOLN — U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) signed a giant check in the presence of numerous local police chiefs and other officials at the Community College of Rhode Island on Monday morning, symbolizing an influx of funds intended to fund a new effort to improve community police efforts statewide.

The funds, amounting to $188,00, were garnered through Kennedy’s work on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee, according to a statement from Kennedy’s office.
Kennedy said the funds would be used to establish a new police training initiative, called a Center for Community Policing & Cultural Diversity.
According to Chief Anthony J. Silva, director of state’s Municipal Police Academy, the new program would fall under the umbrella of his academy, which is based at the Community College of Rhode Island.
Silva, who introduced Kennedy and other speakers at Monday’s press conference announcing the federal funding, said the new program was intended to train law enforcement officers in areas related to cultural sensitivity, in response to statistics that indicated problems in this regard.
“It’s one of a kind, nationally, and we’re very fortunate to have it here,” Silva said. “We’ve been talking about centralizing diversity training in the state for several years now.” 
On Monday, Kennedy addressed other officials and an audience of current police cadets.
He emphasized his appreciation for law enforcement officials, saying he hoped the new program would help make police officers’ jobs less strenuous- and safer.
“It’s a dangerous profession,” Kennedy said. “Every day, we read about (officers) losing their lives in the call of duty.”
Kennedy added that to him, police were part of a war on terror of a different kind: domestic terror.
“For thousands of our neighbors, it is a war on terror. Thank you for going into the profession you are going into.”
Silva said the idea for the Center for Community Policing & Cultural Diversity came after a Northeastern University study on bias-based policing determined that minorities were stopped and searched disproportionately by police. The initiative, which will receive research and technical assistance from CCRI and Roger Williams University, would educate candidate officers on diversity-related issues affecting the communities they will serve. Silva said a steering committee made up of law enforcement officers and members of minority groups within the state would likely be formed to determine the precise nature of the program, which he hoped would be up and running in late fall, shortly after the federal funding garnered by Kennedy becomes available.
One of the expressed intents of the new program, according to Kennedy, was to assist veterans of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who had previously been police officers to get re-acclimated to their former work. Deborah Smith, a representative of Governor Donald Carcieri with a son serving in Iraq, stressed the importance of interpersonal communications, particularly in solving conflicts without violence, an approach she said she had used since childhood.
“Many issues can be solved if we communicate with people,” Smith said. “I never had a fight. My mouth always did the talking.”
Silva and other officials praised Kennedy for obtaining the funding that they said would help get the Center for Community Policing & Cultural Diversity up and running. Pawtucket Police Chief George Kelley said that Kennedy had a strong track record of helping law enforcement agencies, something that was repeatedly touted as a priority of the congressman’s throughout the press conference.
“There isn’t a public service department you could walk into in this congressman’s district where you can find a piece of equipment that would be possible without him,” Kelley said.