PART One

PROVIDENCE – Lost in all the noise surrounding dueling news conferences held last week by R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha and R.I. Gov. Dan McKee, arguing about whether or not the Governor had put his thumb on the scale in favor of awarding a $5.2 million state contract to the ILO consulting firm, and whether the Governor’s actions had constituted prosecutable criminal behavior, was a breaking news story about justice: “Jury convicts co-defendant for the murder of Miya Brophy-Baermann.”

The jury’s verdict was reached on Wednesday, Oct. 30, an unseasonably warm day, the day before Halloween, less than a week before the 2024 Presidential election.

The Attorney General’s office issued a news release reporting that “…following the conclusion of a 12-day jury trail before Superior Court Justice Robert D. Krause, the jury found Shawn Mann, [age 33], guilty of one count of murder; one count of discharge of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence, resulting in death; one count of committing a drive-by shooting; one count of possession of a ghost gun; one count of carrying a pistol without a license; one count of assault with intent to commit murder; and one count of discharge of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence, resulting in no injury.”

The news release continued: “The state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that during the early morning hours on Sunday, Aug. 1, 2021, the defendant and a co-defendant, Isaiah Pinkerton, participated in a drive-by shooting on Olney Street in Providence that killed Miya Brophy-Baermann.”

The gathering of evidence to support the prosecution involved a collaborative effort between the Providence police, the State Police and the Attorney General’s office, linking the ballistics of 9 mm cartridges and a fragmented bullet recovered at the scene to a ghost gun seized during a routine traffic stop four months later. Investigators were then able to connect the spent casings with the ghost gun through the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network database.

“Miya’s life was just beginning when it was tragically cut short, and her loss will forever be felt deeply by her friends, family and community,” said Attorney General Neronha in the news release. “I am heartened that my office, in partnership with the Providence Police Department, has helped bring to justice both the defendants responsible for her murder.”

On the street where we all live.  
Three years later, a makeshift memorial to Miya Brophy-Baermann – a bouquet of bright plastic flowers taped to a utility pole – marks the 2021 murder scene on Olney Street, across the street from the University Heights housing complex.

As ConvergenceRI reported in an earlier story, “Justice as a life force,” the impromptu memorial offers a poignant history lesson for 2024. “Some 50 yards up the hill, on the other side of Olney Street, is the commemorative bronze marker for the Snow Town race riot in 1831, a race riot in which mobs of whites attacked the homes of Black residents. The riots resulted in R.I. Gov. James Fenner having to call out the militia to quell the violence, in which four rioters were killed.”

The story continued: “Three decades before the U.S. Civil War broke out in 1861, racial violence marked the history of Providence and Rhode Island. [See link below the story published in 2024, and to an earlier story published in 2017 by ConvergenceRI, “Parsing the racial divide in Rhode Island.”]

“Speed hump”    
The guilty verdict in the murder trial provided a kind of emotional “speed hump” – the way that speed bumps are now labeled on the streets of Providence.

Coming when it did, when violence against women and racial violence are flash points in the 2024 Presidential election, and when the prosecutorial role of R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha is being challenged by Gov. Dan McKee, the guilty verdict in a murder trial where the perpetrators used a “ghost” gun in a drive-by shooting reframes the political equation in Rhode Island.

Editor’s Note: In PART Two, ConvergenceRI examines the content of the two dueling news conferences between Attorney General Peter Neronha and Gov. Dan McKee.