Hartford leads state in police changes
HARTFORD — As the state’s capital city becomes the first in Connecticut to partially defund its police department, the community — like others across the country — is struggling with how far to go and maintain public safety.
The Hartford City Council Wednesday night cut $1 million from its $46.6 million police budget and redirected another $1 million to training and community building activities. The cuts come as protests and Black Lives Matter rallies continue in Connecticut and across the country and a
growing Defund the Police movement seeks to force changes in how departments operate following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Data obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media from Hartford police shows a lengthy list of disciplinary actions by the department. The data shows that between 2015 and 2019, 43 officers were suspended for violations of departmental policy, nine were dismissed or fired and 45 resigned.
Reasons for the suspensions and resignations were not included in the data.
The reductions in the Hartford police budget also represent a compromise between a proposal to remove 22 percent of the police department’s budget — a move city officials and the police union warned would cause the loss of at least 100 of the department’s 430 officers — and a less radical approach to trim and redirect 3.5 percent of the budget.
“It’s an evolutionary process and we are in an accelerating mode that’s fueled by recent events,” said City Council member John Gale.
The cuts mark a sharp departure from a statewide trend in recent years of hiring more officers, purchasing federal military-style equipment and generally beefing up police firepower.
After hours of debate and wrangling, the council unanimously opted for the more modest plan.
“Cutting nearly a quarter of the police budget overnight would not have been responsible,” Mayor Luke Bronin said in a statement.
“It would have just left us with a hundred fewer officers, no community service officers, no walk beats, and unacceptable response times,” the mayor said.
Policing the police
In the data released to Hearst, the department also detailed the number of citizen complaints against officers between
February 2015 and February 2019.
The seven pages of numbers shows four officers received double digit complaints during the period, with one officer having with the most at 11 complaints. In April, an internal investigation concluded that the officer failed to properly investigate a domestic incident in 2016.
Three other officers received 10 complaints and the rest fluctuated from under ten to just one complaint.
Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody said police in the past have not taken citizen complaints seriously enough.
“We shouldn’t pretend that there wasn’t a problem — looking at the data, there’s no question that for years, citizen complaints were not taken as seriously as they should have been,” Thody said.
“It’s also true that there’s been a shift over the past two and half years, with far more complaints sustained, and stronger, more consistent discipline,” Thody added.
Statistics provided by police on Thursday show that 4.8 percent of 104 citizen complaints in 2015 were sustained, meaning deemed valid.
By 2019, 21 percent of 86 complaints were sustained and 24 percent of 62 complaints in 2018, the numbers show.
Vas Srivastava, a spokesman for Bronin, said the city uses an alert system that notifies the department when multiple complaints are filed against an officer.
“There has been or will be discipline for three of the top four on the list,” Srivastava said.
Hartford Police Union Vice President Joseph Sherbo, who received 10 citizen complaints, said a few years ago he was making a large amount of arrests and said that tends to draw more complaints.
“I was in a proactive position to arrest people, for guns and drugs,” Sherbo said. “With that territory, you get complaints. I was number one for summons a couple of years ago.”
Sherbo said he believed that “99 percent” of the complaints against him were not sustained.
Asked what he learned from that
experience, Sherbo noted, “I learned that you can’t be proactive and make everyone happy. You slow down, I guess.”
City officials said three complaints against Sherbo were sustained and that he has been or will be disciplined as a result.
Union President Anthony Rinaldi said many of the complaints came from people arrested for loitering, drinking and other frequent infractions. He said those types of arrests tend to draw the most complaints.
“When there are a lot of arrests, people complain,” Rinaldi said.
The city has taken a variety of steps to change how the department operates, Srivastava said.
“We got rid of cops in schools and have not bought military equipment,” Srivastava said. “We have a progressive use of force policy. We have a civilian police review board.”
The department recently fired an officer for saying he was “trigger happy” and disciplined another for a racist remark.
The police also require that a supervisory officer be called to the scene after use of force.
A different approach
The police funding compromise Hartford adopted represents a mix of reallocating money to benefit underserved populations, increasing police accountability and pushing the department in a new direction.
For example, the Public Works Department would receive $200,000 to hire staff, the city’s corporation counsel would receive $200,000 for a new Civilian Police Review Board and $75,000 would be spent on a newly created Police Accountability Review Board.
The previously unfunded Civilian Police Review Board would receive a $50,000 stipend and discussions are underway to give it the power to subpoena records and testimony.
Other money would be used to boost after-school programs and increase health and housing inspections in underserved neighborhoods.