The Rhode Island assistant attorney general will be placed on unpaid leave after resisting arrest in a viral video from Aug. 14.
Devon Flanagan will be placed on unpaid leave starting Monday, following her arrest outside of the Clarke Cooke House on a charge of trespassing, the Rhode Island attorney general’s office told the Rhode Island Current.
In body cam footage posted to X on Thursday, Flanagan was seen telling officers, “Your protocol is if I ask you to turn off the body cam, you have to turn it off, and that’s your protocol.” (RELATED: Arrest Video Shows Ronald McDonald Imposter Getting Taken Down By Police)
NEW: Rhode Island Attorney General promises “strong sanction” for the prosecutor who was arrested while bragging about how she’s “an AG.”
Special Assistant AG Devon Hogan Flanagan was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest on August 14.
During an interview with a local… pic.twitter.com/ektBsgHHnE
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 21, 2025
Her friend followed up by saying, “She’s a fucking lawyer, so she knows.”
Flanagan pleaded with the officers while they placed her under arrest, saying, “I’m an AG, I’m an AG.”
“You’re going to regret this, you’re going to regret it,” she can be heard telling the police officer while he put her in the back of a police car.
Flanagan’s friend can also be seen getting arrested in the body cam footage. At one point she slips away from police officers and throws their handcuffs on the ground before they eventually detained her, and she was put in the back of a police car.
In a radio interview on Tuesday, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha called the incident “inexcusable behavior” and said there will likely be “strong, strong sanctions” against Flanagan.
“I’ve got 110 lawyers. She embarrassed all of them. I haven’t had many issues like this while I’ve been attorney general. I’ve had a few, and I let one guy go for driving drunk – had to bring him back – well I didn’t have to but did bring him back after I fired him about a year later because, again, I needed somebody to go into a courtroom and try ugly, hard murder cases,” Neronha told WPRO Radio.
“It’s just really hard to find and keep capable lawyers, and so I just have to think really carefully about this one. But no question there will be a strong, strong sanction here,” he went on to say.
Neronha claimed he believed the incident was alcohol-related, but he added that that fact doesn’t excuse Flanagan’s behavior.
Neronha also said that Flanagan’s assertions that police officers must turn off their body cams if asked was incorrect.
“I’m not sure what she was thinking. Clearly, she was not thinking straight.”
Neronha went on to say that Flanagan’s reputation will be permanently blemished because of this incident.
“She’s humiliated herself,” he said. “Regardless of what happens vis-a-vis her employment with us, she’s going to have a long time coming back from this. It’s just really unfortunate.”
Flanagan is scheduled to be arraigned in Newport District Court before Judge J. Terence Houlihan Jr. on Aug. 27, according to online records.
