Why No Code Red Last Weekend? We Asked the Chief

By Cynthia Drummond

RICHMOND – The murder last Saturday of Stephanie Francis and the subsequent police pursuit of her estranged husband, Joseph Francis, have prompted questions about why the public was not alerted that there was a murder suspect at large.

In an interview on Tuesday, Richmond Police Chief Elwood Johnson explained why the town’s codeRED emergency notification system had not been activated.

There were several reasons, Johnson said, for not alerting the public that police were chasing Joseph Francis: the principal reason is jurisdiction.

Several municipal police departments were involved, but the Rhode Island State Police controlled the crime scene, the home on Stubtown Road in Hopkinton where Stephanie Francis was shot and the scene near Dawley Park in Richmond where Joseph Francis’s Suburban rolled over and Francis was found deceased inside the vehicle.

The homicide scene was under the control of Rhode Island State Police,” Johnson said. “State Police were gathering evidence at the scene, and they need to control access to the scene. The more people who go to the scene, there’s a potential for contamination.”

Time was another major factor. The entire Richmond segment of the pursuit, led by Sergeant William Litterio, lasted only about six minutes.

“It happened so quickly,” Johnson said. “Our involvement was so brief, the codeRED wouldn’t have gone out before the suspect was contained. At that point, the State Police own that site where the crash happened. … Once you have a suspect with no known hostage contained, there is no rush. Those things can take many hours.”

In this case, several officers surrounded the SUV after it had rolled over and took cover behind their vehicles while they waited for a State Police SWAT team to enter the SUV and determine whether the suspect was deceased.

“There will be those times when we notify the public and the press,” Johnson said. “This was not one of those times. …If he [Francis] had escaped capture, it would have been necessary. That wasn’t the case. They [the officers] felt they had eyes on him and the ability to control his vehicle.”

Johnson added that issuing a codeRED might have prompted some residents to become involved.

“I’m confident that people would have gone out to see it [the chase] go by,” he said.

Johnson made a final point about how cases like this one affect police officers.

 “These guys are putting themselves at risk and in harm’s way to protect the public,” he said. “These things take a toll on the officers. It doesn’t get much more serious than that.”