New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘There’s a positive feeling in the department’
New acting police chief to focus on ‘communications and collaborations’ with community
HAMDEN — As the Police Department transitions to new leadership, it also is moving to examine its role in the community.
The town Thursday swore-in Acting Police Chief John Sullivan, after former Chief John Cappiello announced his retirement at the end of June.
The transition in leadership comes at a time when people, locally and nationally, are questioning the role of police in their communities, calling on municipal leaders to cut back on police funding or, in some cases, to divest altogether.
“It’s not the most ideal time to come into a role like this, but our department is looking forward to working with our community on these issues,” Sullivan said. “I have a positive outlook. It may not seem like the time to have positive outlook but I do.”
Cappiello retired July 1 after serving six months as chief of police, though he’d been acting chief for 18 months prior.
“Outside people are questioning more why we (police) are doing this, and when we’re doing it as ‘because I say so,’ it’s an ‘us against them’ attitude — people don’t trust you,” Cappiello said. “I’d love to
see that we continue to build on our community relationships. A lot of people in power do our best, but there’s still that feeling that there’s two different Hamdens. That’s tough to deal with.”
In Sullivan’s first week on the job, he said he met with community leaders from Hamden and New Haven, talking about issues and the department’s future.
“Those communications and collaborations are going to help our department be successful,” he said.
Like Cappiello, Sullivan grew up in town and has been with Hamden police from the start of his career 25 years ago, recently heading the community policing and traffic divisions as a lieutenant, and has served in the Ethics and Integrity unit.
Sullivan said he wants to expand the community policing unit and integrate those practices throughout the department.
“We’re looking to have more departmental community police outlook,” he said. “We plan on doing a lot of training, working with the community, having forums and community leaders. We want to work with everyone in the community and hear what they expect of us.”
As the department moves forward, Sullivan said he also will be fiscally aware amid financial challenges in the town and cutbacks to the department.
“We have a lot of things stacked up against us, but there’s a positive feeling in the department,” he said.
Sullivan is coming into the role as Hamden is fighting an injunction that prevents officials from moving forward with a disciplinary hearing for Officer Devin Eaton, charged with shooting an unarmed woman during a stop last year in New Haven.
Cappiello in late November recommended terminating Eaton, but with the injunction in place, the hearing is postponed indefinitely until his criminal proceedings conclude or are dismissed.
Farewell to department
Since the time when Cappiello started in Hamden in 1984 as a patrolman — rising through the ranks to serve as deputy chief for 12 years — policing has changed significantly, he said.
Even though Cappiello doesn’t have influence on how the department moves forward, he said it needs to change.
“What you leave behind is the fact that you think you know everything about how to police,” he said of policing going forward. “You have to leave the closedminded behind and see what’s going on in the world. You leave behind the thought that you know everything — you have to be forward thinker.”
Hamden had been without a contracted police chief since October 2018 when former Chief Thomas Wydra retired. Cappiello stepped up as acting chief and headed the department in that role through several tragedies and changes in the department.
Cappiello said he’d been planning to retire before the contracted appointment came along, partly out of frustration because the town took 18 months to name him for the position.
His contract was renewable every six months and, at the time, Cappiello said he planned to see through his nine years of eligibility.
“It was getting to be where it became time — you just know,” he said. “You did what you had to do and it was the right time. The enjoyment of going to work every day started changing and I always said when I don’t feel like it’s fun to go to work anymore, it’s time. My body was also telling me that it was.”
Cappiello said he wanted to get the department back to basics and have officers become true public servants who supported the community.
“If you work with the community and something goes sideways, you work as a team instead of ‘us against them,’” he said. “Officers need to understand it’s how you treat people that matters.”
Cappiello only had been police chief for a little more than two months before the coronavirus pandemic escalated in the U.S., which made implementing some of his ideas difficult or impossible, he said.
He said his idea of community policing started with the community looking out for each other and then involving police when truly needed.
Committments to change
In the past year, the town and Legislative Council have made a number of commitments on policing reform based on input from the community through numerous public meetings and demonstrations.
Principal among the demands has been revising the police union contract, board of police commissioners and Hamden’s charter to create a civilian review board to oversee police accountability.
Because no state legislation exists giving municipalities the ability to create CRBs, currently it’s only through charter revision that towns and cities can create them, as New Haven did last year.
The Hamden council recently created a charter revision commission to begin that work.
In a resolution responding to the April 2018 shooting in which Eaton opened fire on Paul Witherspoon and Stephanie Washington — who was seriously injured — the Legislative Council expressed its desire for a CRB and to initiate third-party reviews of the investigations into the Eaton shooting and an August 2018 police pursuit that involved a fatal crash.
About a month after the Eaton shooting, Mayor Curt B. Leng created the Police Chief Community Input and Transparency Committee, which held three public meetings to gather input from the community on what they valued in the next police chief.
The committee was tasked with updating the police chief job description based on the input, researching recruitment strategies to attract a diverse pool of applicants, and conducting full interviews in collaboration with the Personnel Department to recommend a list of top candidates.
Late last November, Leng said the committee had completed a new job description that was being vetted by personnel, but it was never released. Then, with Cappiello’s contracted appointment, the process was suspended.
Several council members at the time frowned on Leng’s appointment of Cappiello after the committee put in work to gather input from community members, saying the work was disregarded and the process wasn’t honored.
With Sullivan’s appointment to acting chief, Leng said the committee will resume meetings and a search for a new chief of police.
“The goal is to complete this process in a thorough, but expedient manner,” he said at the end of June.
The committee has no meeting schedule published on the town website.
The current job description for police chief was last revised in October 2018 when Cappiello became acting chief. The town has not yet released a revised job description, after inquiries last week by Hearst Connecticut Media.
Additionally, in early June, while the country saw the height of demonstrations and protests against police brutality, Leng said Hamden would commit to addressing police use of force policies and make reforms to combat police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement in line with President Barack Obama’s “My Brothers’ Keeper” program.
Leng didn’t detail how or when the issues would be addressed, but said updates would be released on the town website.