Rhode Island
Scrap the Cams: Morales Would Kill Providence’s Flock—Days After Cranston Used It to Nab Thieves
What happened
Early on Sept. 11, 2026, Cranston police arrested two New York men — Anyeson Veras Martinez, 26, and Steven Velez Toribio, 29 — accused of stealing roughly 100 gallons of used cooking oil (valued around $200) from PJ’s Pub on Pontiac Avenue. According to Cranston Police, Flock automated license-plate readers flagged a white 2018 Ford Transit with Pennsylvania plate VDF0027 around 1:57 a.m. as associated with prior cooking-oil thefts. Officers located the van at the pub about 2:20 a.m. with hose-and-pump equipment and oil residue on the occupants. Chief Michael J. Winquist said Flock provided a timely investigative lead; officers made the arrest. WPRI and WJAR both covered the bust.
Across the city line, democratic socialist State Rep. David Morales won Providence’s Sept. 9 Democratic mayoral primary over incumbent Brett Smiley and is the heavy November favorite. At an Aug. 12, 2026 mayoral forum covered by the Boston Globe, Morales pledged to cancel Providence’s Flock Safety contract and take down the city’s roughly 60 Flock cameras (about $160,000 a year; contract set to expire in October), citing privacy and data-sharing concerns, including Illinois allegations involving Customs and Border Protection. Smiley defended the tool, pointing to cases including the Brown University shooter vehicle track and a 2023 North Main Street hit-and-run. WPRI reported the same Flock divide; Smiley also noted Morales’s 2021 defund-the-police advocacy, which Morales says he no longer holds.
After the primary, Providence Fraternal Order of Police President Michael Imondi told WJAR (Sept. 11) the union still has questions about Morales and that nearly 100 of about 450 officers could leave within a year, “possibly due in part” to the leadership change — a forecast, not a confirmed exodus. Morales told WJAR he looks forward to working with police and wants officers to know he will listen on public safety.
Original reporting
Read the underlying coverage:
WJAR / TurnTo10 — 2 men accused of stealing cooking oil in Cranston (Sept. 11, 2026)
Boston Globe — Providence mayoral challenger says he would remove Flock cameras (Aug. 12, 2026)
WPRI — Providence mayoral candidates at odds over Flock cameras (Aug. 2026)
Virtue Forge commentary
Ideology is not a crime plan. Cranston just showed what a plate reader can do on a boring overnight theft ring: flag a known van, put cops at the right restaurant, and cuff out-of-state operators before they vanish down Route 37. Providence’s incoming DSA mayor-elect campaigned to yank the same class of tool off city poles as a trust-and-privacy trophy. Privacy deserves rules. Competence asks whether you harden the contract — audits, sharing limits, access logs — or throw away a capability that helped catch thieves next door and, by Smiley’s account, helped solve serious crimes.
Humble government does not confuse activist applause with safer streets. Free enterprise and American cities need cops who can chase leads faster than grease thieves can pump a tank. If Morales wants trust, start with audited sharing rules — not a campaign promise to darken the cameras while Cranston’s just lit up a suspect van.