Police policies, focus under scrutiny
Restricting use of force, de-escalation training among possible changes
Restrict use of force and shift response to what essentially are mental health and poverty-related problems out of the purview of police departments to social service agencies, housing and schools, along with the funding that goes with it.
This sea change of thinking, that puts the focus on community control, couldn’t get an audience in many of the country’s legislative bodies a month ago, though it long has been recommended by data-driven research and in academic circles. The death of George Floyd, a black resident of
Minneapolis, caused by white police Officer Derek Chauvin, who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost 9 minutes, has crystallized police violence against black Americans, sending thousands into the streets to protest across the country, including large marches in New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford and other communities.
A five-year project by the Washington Post found that nearly 1,000 residents are killed annually in police shootings, but black Americans are killed at a disproportionate rate — more than twice the rate of white Americans; Hispanic Americans also are killed at a disproportionate rate.
State Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is hopeful that a police accountability bill will be adopted in a special session likely next month. He said police themselves say they are doing what mental health professionals should be doing, so the concept of taking duties away from them is not radical.
“At the state level, I have a lot of hope based on the progress we have been making in 2015 and in 2019. I am intent on doing a significant bill this year,” Winfield said.
The genesis of policing comes out of people who rounded up enslaved people and monitored them on the plantations. At the end of slavery there was the enforcement of the black code, which were certain kinds of vagrancy laws and others that were obviously discriminatory, Winfield said. In turn, such policies as stop and frisk are reflective of those beginnings.
“Policing in 2020 is not disconnected enough from its roots,” the state senator said. “We have to look anew at the whole concept. We can’t just say we reform. This is an inflection point in our nation and it demands that we respond.”
Defund or change?
There have been many calls at the marches to “defund police,” with a goal to reallocate resources. One example is what San Francisco is doing by having trained, unarmed professionals answer calls for issues such a mental health crises and neighborhood disputes.
Some communities may be inclined to begin this shift, but at this point in the year their budgets for fiscal 2021 may be set. Additionally, the costs of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is leaving a lot of uncertainty as to how those budgets will hold up.
A later budget schedule in the city of Hartford, however, allowed it this week to incorporate $1 million in cuts to its police budget for next year with another $1 million reallocated to fund walking beats and training, its response to the national dialogue sparked by Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Another marker to come out of Floyd’s death are recommended policy reviews put out by Operation Zero, aimed at reducing the potential for violent encounters by police all under the rubric of #8CantWait, a list of eight steps communities can take.
They are: Ban chokeholds and strangleholds; require de-escalation; require warning before shooting; require exhausting alternatives before shooting; duty to intervene; ban shooting at moving vehicles; require a use of force continuum; and comprehensive reporting.
Operation Zero said it found that police departments with policies that place clear restrictions on when and how officers use force had significantly fewer killings than those that did not have these restrictions in place.
A representative of those who want to see major cuts in New Haven’s $43 million police budget is Addys Castillo, executive director of the Citywide Youth Coalition, which led a peaceful march of some 5,000 people on June 5 against racism and police brutality.
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For every issue we have in the community, the first response is the cops. We have a homeless issue. So instead of getting housing, we need to patrol the homeless; we have an addiction issue, instead of having more residential beds, more counselors, the cops are the new care workers. Even in schools, why do we have cops when we could have social workers?” Castillo asked.
She favors shifting funds to the street outreach workers, rather than police, who help to defuse conflicts in neighborhoods. Frustrated by under-funding in education, Castillo said students she works with don’t have books for subjects such as advanced calculus classes.
“All we are saying is, instead of us continually throwing money at the police department, which continues to be more militarized ... why not spend that money on actually developing protocols that are more about youth development and are centered on the social and emotional learning of young people,” Castillo said.
In Bridgeport, City Councilwoman Aidee Nieves said that, for now, defunding the Police Department is not part of the public safety reforms that legislative body has embarked on. She said she is aware it has become part of the national conversation, but it would have to be carefully considered in terms of what would fit for Bridgeport.
Mayor Joe Ganim and the council finalized the city’s 2020-21 budget last month.
One thing the council has proposed — and the mayor got behind — is paying for settlements related to excessive force lawsuits from police overtime funds.
Stamford Public Safety Director Ted Jankowski said there is no consideration being given there to defunding the police or cutting money from the police budget in order to put the money into social service or educational programs.
Jankowski did say, however, that steep cuts are being made in city departments to make up for a $32.2 million revenue shortfall caused by the pandemic.
As a result, he said cuts may affect the department’s operations.
“Our community and neighborhood policing model has worked very well in providing for the safety and security of Stamford residents. This model pushes for positive community encounters to ensure that the first encounter an individual has with police is not one where they are being arrested,” Janlowski said.
The safety director said there are areas in police operations to be considered for improvement and they are working with community partners, the NAACP, community groups and faith-based organizations to define those areas and remedy them.
The New Haven Board of Alders cut Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $569.1 million budget for fiscal 2021 that begins on July 1, telling the school board to do without $2.5 million and the administration to cut $3.85 million in unspecified personnel reductions in noneducation departments. The budget also depends on $2.5 million more from Yale University that has not been negotiated.
There are cuts in many departments in next year’s budget, but the largest cut by the mayor was a combination of vacant positions as well as some reduced to a $1 — about 41, or 10 percent in total, in the Police Department and 12 in the Fire Department. This is before factoring in any more that might come from the alders’ additional cut.
The discussion in March when the proposed budget was issued was how fast two new classes of recruits could get through training to help fill the ranks of budgeted sworn officers, back to 406 from the present 338 after dozens left for lack of a contract. The 406 sworn personnel budgeted this year is down from the 466 budgeted in fiscal 2019.
Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said that by the end of the month, sworn officers will total 322, given the retirements that will be in place by July 1. He does hope to have the benefit of two new classes of recruits, some 70 officers, late in 2021. Overtime for next year is budgeted at $6 million, a cost that goes up as personnel goes down.
Reyes said at this time in the year he is using the overtime budget to have an adequate staff to answer calls for service, given the diminished number of sworn officers. “It has had an impact on our visibility and it has an impact on the kind of community policing department we want to be because we just don’t have the numbers,” he said. “It is very challenging.”
The chief said the department, ultimately, “needs to be a reflection of what the community wants. The community gets to decide what kind of police department it wants and if it wants a smaller department we have to respect that.”
Elicker said it is not an immediate possibility.
“Overall, the discussion of what defunding police means is one that we should have. But I think that takes a longer time. I have to figure out how to address a significant hole in our budget now,” Elicker said. The budget goes into effect in less than three weeks.
As to #8CantWait, the chief and Elicker said they are reviewing them and agree the language needs to be strengthened, something they will be work on with the Police Commission. Both said they welcome the input of the public and plan to put use of force data online. The department’s general orders can be found online.
East Haven police Lt. Joseph Murgo said he “wouldn’t anticipate there being much talk about” defunding or shifting resources to social services “because the consent decree is still too fresh in people’s minds.”
Part of what resulted from the consent decree with the federal Department of Justice in the wake of the 2012 arrest of four East Haven police officers for using excessive force and violating the civil rights of Latino residents was an increase in funding to implement changes in the department.
De-escalation “is huge in our training” and things like chokeholds “are highly discouraged,” said Murgo, the department’s spokesman, who has been promoted to captain effective July 1. “In our training,” chokeholds “are considered lethal force” and are not allowed except in situations where lethal force is called for, he said.
Murgo bristled at the idea of defunding police departments in some locations, including Minneapolis.
“There’s somebody right now who’s a domestic violence victim, and their abuser is sitting in the other room right now getting drunk” and waiting for the opportunity to start abusing them again, Murgo said.
“You need cops for that,” he said.
Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim said he has fielded hundreds of emails from people about shifting police funding to other uses.
“We have been trying very hard to meet those demands in some way. I feel good about the conversation that is going on,” said the mayor, who is eager to begin the process.
In fact, the municipal budget approved by the Common Council Thursday reappropriates $200,000 from the Police Department’s private-duty line item to the soon-to-be-formed committee on anti-racism. The changed garnered bipartisan support in an 11-1 vote.
Over the years, Florsheim said, Middletown police have examined hiring practices, provided training for staff and “taking a hard line” on any violations. “There is still work to be done. We all realize that,” he said, adding that city officers do not employ chokeholds.
The $200,000 will be a good start for anti-racism efforts, but, Florsheim admitted, “it’s certainly not the end.”Local police already practice many of the 8 Can’t Wait goals — already in place in Middletown — as well as New York City and Minneapolis, where police actions have drawn public outcry around the world.
Still, “that didn’t stop George Floyd from being killed,” as well Eric Garner, who died in New York City in 2014 after authorities used a chokehold to subdue him, Florsheim said.
He and the police chief will be looking at which policies already are codified, which practices are not, as well as codifying new ones, the mayor added.
“The onus is on us to make sure we’re saying, ‘here’s our mission statement.’”
Underlying a better relationship between police and the black community is establishing trust, according to many studies, including the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College.
Louise Avila of the network said that means “acknowledging the really long history of harm that hangs over policing as an institution going as far back as the 1620s and recently as May 25, 2020. If we are serious about trust building then police have to to go first.’’
Stacy Spell, who runs “Project Longevity” in New Haven, said “we have to reset the relationships. We have to bring accountability to bear. We have to have transparency.”