Police accountability

After spike in shootings, union leader points to officers ‘taking a step back’ from patrols

After another wave of gun violence swept the capital city over the weekend, Hartford police union officials blame a recent spike in shootings on officers“taking a step back” from proactive patrols following new police reforms.

After another wave of gun violence swept the capital city over the weekend, killing one and injuring a half-dozen more, Hartford police union officials blame a recent spike in shootings on officers “taking a step back” from proactive patrols following new police reforms signed into state law this summer.

Hartford police responded to five separate shootings with reported injuries in just over 48 hours from Friday night to early Monday morning, including two double shootings that left 40-year-old Victor Garcia dead and three others injured.

The violent weekend further extends a surge in gunshot victims since the beginning of September — a period that has seen nearly triple the number of shootings with injuries over any of the previous three years, police data show.

Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody and Mayor Luke Bronin have suggested the increase may follow the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including some curtailed court services, but Hartford Police Union President Anthony Rinaldi wrote in a letter published Monday that it is actually because officers are not “proactively patrolling” after the reforms passed.

“Our Elected Officials can blame the health pandemic and related matters to this wave of violence,” Rinaldi wrote. “Sadly, the truth is that police officers are taking a step back and not proactively patrolling their communities due to the uncertainty and vagueness of the Police Accountability Act.”

Bronin fired back Monday afternoon, dismissing the assertion that the spike in violence is tied to any lack of officers’ effort. He noted that police are on track to make about as many auto theft arrests this year as last and have made 31 arrests in connection with 2020 and 2019 homicides, compared to about 18 homicide arrests at this time last year. The city’s 19 homicides recorded so far this year also is slightly less than the number of murders at this time last year.

“That data does not show a picture of a police department that is standing down on their responsibilities and I think to suggest that the violence we’re seeing is because the men and women of the Hartford Police Department aren’t doing their job does a disservice to the men and women who are out there working really hard every day,”

Bronin said.

Connecticut lawmakers passed police reform this summer in the wake of nationwide protests after George Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. The new bill included significant changes to policing, such as mandating officer-worn body cameras, banning most chokeholds and creating an independent inspector general to investigate officers’ use of deadly force.

But the new bill has sparked enormous backlash from police unions and officers across the state who argued it would leave officers uncertain about their actions in the field and hamstrung by more regulations.

Rinaldi points to those concerns, not the impact of COVID-19 restrictions, as the driving force behind the recent spike in gun violence in Hartford. He contends the “vagueness” of the new accountability bill actually made officers less willing to patrol neighborhoods and that has made them more susceptible to the shootings that have followed.

“If police officers are not supported and given the tools needed by the government for which they are employed, crime will continue to rise,” Rinaldi wrote. “Criminals are becoming more brazen due to the lack of proactive policing that is a vital part of keeping our communities safe.”

Police union leaders argued fervently against the bill over the summer, sometimes arguing crime would rise after its passing, and leaders from surrounding police department unions echoed Rinaldi’s commentary Monday.

“I think it’s obvious to anyone just looking at the numbers, car break ins and thefts are out of control, and nobody is doing anything about it,” said Frank Iacono, president of the East Hartford Police Officers Association. “The bars and nightclubs being closed due to COVID is probably actually helping the violent crime numbers stay down, if those were open I bet shootings would be off the charts. Just look at what’s happened with the few unsanctioned large gatherings we had this summer, they almost all ended in violence.”

Although Hartford specifically has seen a large spike in shootings with injuries since the beginning of September, most other communities have not seen corresponding increases in violence since the police accountability bill was signed into law on July 31. Meriden police have reported a string of shootings and several murders since August, but police have indicated at least some of those incidents may be tied to gang activity in both Meriden and New Haven.

Hartford has now recorded more than 40 separate shootings with injuries since the beginning of September, including 10 double shootings and three gun homicides.

Garcia was shot and killed in the most recent double shooting Friday night and another man shot that night remains in serious but stable condition Monday, police said. On back to back days in September, 24-year-old basketball standout Jaqhawn Walters and 21-year-old Alexis Ortiz were shot and killed in broad daylight on opposite ends of the city.

Hartford investigators do not believe the increase in shootings is connected to more organized drug networks or gang activity and instead attribute it to personal disputes among young people, many of whom have been arrested recently but not processed by a court system whose capacity is limited by COVID-19 restrictions, Thody and Bronin said last week.

State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, a Bridgeport Democrat who helped write the police accountability bill as the co-chairman of the legislature’s judiciary committee, said lawmakers are listening to police unions concerns about the new law but dismissed their concerns Monday that the bill is behind the recent violence in Hartford.

“This statement sounds like more election season posturing and fearmongering,” Stafstrom said. “It is hard to believe that most honorable police officers are intentionally refusing to do their job because of this bill.”

But police union leaders who point the finger at the new legislation argue it is actually leaders who blame COVID who are politicizing the issue.

“Bronin and Thody are politicizing the uptick in violent crime, blaming it on COVID. What a bunch of [expletive],” said Detective Sgt. Jeff Lampson, vice president of the Windsor Locks police union.

“If you want to make a sound, correlating argument to explain the uptick in violent crime, look no further than the police accountability bill,” he continued. “Connecticut’s feckless lawmakers have created a dangerous chasm with this bill. It’s loaded with double standards, ambiguity, and has placed society (and police) as a whole in a more precarious situation than ever before.”

Hartford police regularly shift patrols or conduct targeted operations across the city in response to crime trends, but police have not indicated publicly whether they have created a specific response after the recent spate of shootings. State police descended on Bridgeport this summer to increase visible foot patrols after a spike in violence and responded last summer to support Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford officers after spikes in shootings in June and July 2019, but officials have not indicated whether that is being considered for Hartford this fall.

“As I’ve talked about many times over the past few days, there are many causes and many complex causes for the spike in gunviolence,” Bronin said. “But what I see again particularly when it comes to violent crime, to gun arrests, to auto theft, which is often associated with gun violence; I see our officers working their hearts out.”