New Haven police chief placed on paid leave

Mayor says chief’s behavior in restaurant ‘unbecoming’; union says 15-day discipline ‘weak’

NEW HAVEN >> Police Chief Dean Esserman is on paid leave for three work weeks after he allegedly berated waitstaff at a local restaurant earlier this month, Mayor Toni Harp said in a statement Monday.

Police union members are not pleased with the decision, saying it was too lenient.

Assistant Chief Anthony Campbell will serve as acting chief in Esserman’s absence.

“Following my investigation of recent reports of conduct I consider unbecoming a public official, Chief of Police Dean Esserman and I have mutually agreed that he will take a 15 working-day, paid leave-of-absence, effective tomorrow,” Harp said in the release Monday. “Beyond that, given the City’s policy and practice of honoring a presumption of confidentiality in personnel matters, there will be no further comment.”

On Sunday, Harp said she was looking at imposing some form of discipline on Esserman, reacting to an incident that a witness told her occurred at Archie Moore’s restaurant on Willow Street.

The witness told Harp the chief berated a member of the waitstaff about the service and caused a disturbance to the point where some patrons asked to be moved to another table.

Sgt. Rich Miller of the police union’s executive board said in statement Monday he was disappointed with the mayor’s decision.

“The union is disappointed with the weak stance of Mayor Harp (giving) Chief Esserman what amounts to a 15-day paid vacation,” Miller said. “This is a slap in the face to the hard working officers of the New Haven police who are the true faces of community policing.”

Miller said the decision enables what he called bad behavior to continue in the future.

“And it will, given the chief’s history,” Miller said. “This only serves to lower the morale of the Police Department to a even lower level then it was before the no confidence vote.”

Esserman did not return a call seeking comment Monday.

In the meantime, a union board member submitted to Harp Monday a 23-page document of detailing an alleged “track record” of Esserman as an “ineffective” chief. The document alleges that Esserman established a pattern of political patronage appointments as chief, abrupt resignations, controversies and no-confidence votes during his career in multiple cities, including Satmford and Providence, Rhode Island.

While Harp has said Esserman has moved the department forward, including with the drop in crime seen during his tenure, the union expressed a different opinion. It credits the reduction in crime to the police officers, not the chief.

“Crime reduction in New Haven is not a reflection of Esserman’s leadership,” the document states.

The document, for instance, claims that New Haven’s 911 call center allegedly failed to forward crime reports in October 2015, including at least 80 required cases to the FBI.

According to the document, Esserman allegedly takes “full advantage” of training programs, but has not “and will not” send officers to several training opportunities that have been afforded to officers in past years.

The document also lists 16 “successful” initiatives that have been instituted in the department, allegedly prior to Esserman’s arrival, which have contributed to crime reduction. On the list is the PAL Camp for children, a walking beat for new cadets, and Project Safe Neighborhoods, among others. The list also includes the successful weekly Compstat meetings, which the union document claims “Esserman just renamed the statistical meeting” formerly known as TASCA. The document describe more alleged instances of Esserman’s behavior and lawsuits filed against him.

When the mayor spoke to Esserman about the incident at Archie Moore’s, Harp said he was apologetic, selfaware, and that given the pressures on him from the job and personal circumstances, it has been a tough time for him.

“It is hard to believe these things happen. When he is with me, he is very respectful,” Harp said Sunday.

Laurence Grotheer, spokesman for Harp, said she met with Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes, Chief Admin- istrative Officer Michael Carter and Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr. over the issue of disciplining Esserman.He said they were together for several hours before the chief joined them and a statement was issued around 4:30 p.m.

In December 2014, Esserman received a written reprimand for an incident at a September Yale-Army football game in which he chastised an usher who asked to see his ticket. The complaint about Esserman alleged he threatened to “shut the whole game down” if the usher was not removed from the game.

Harp warned him then that “more severe consequences” would follow, if such an incident happened again.

Esserman said at the time that he “accepts the (Harp) letter without reservation.”

“No one is above the law or the rules, myself included,” he said in 2014. “Wrong is wrong.”

Others have been put on paid administrative leave while the city looked into their alleged behavior, but it was clear the leave was tied to an ongoing investigation.

A former executive director of the Commission on Equal Opportunities, Nichole Jefferson, was put on paid administrative leave in March 2015 and fired the following August.

She is continuing to appeal the firing and has since been cleared by the FBI of any wrongdoing, and won an appeal after being denied workers’ compensation.

Achante Miles, a utilization monitor at the CEO, was also put on leave but the case was not fully adjudicated before the funding for her position ran out.

The mayor fired Mendi Blue, head of the Office of Development and Policy, and Labor Relations Director Marcus Paca in April — Blue for seeking funds for her office and Paca for alleged contract decisions that were costly.