Police morale back on upswing

Command staff being rebuilt after years of simmering animosity

After a couple of difficult years, the Wethersfield Police Department is rebuilding its command staff while morale appears to be on the upswing.

The town council appears confident that fractured relations with the police administration are a thing of the past, and this week authorized three new jobs — a second senior commander along with two officers to beef up the patrol ranks.

Even though there are lingering lawsuits from the past two years of upheaval and animosity within the department, newly hired Chief Rafael Medina has started a campaign to improve training, build officers’ trust in supervisors and reform the discipline process to be more evenhanded.

“We’ve got the utmost confidence in Chief Medina. The police department is going in a great direction,” Mayor Michael Rell said Friday.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” said Officer Richard Holton, president of the police union.

Before the town recruited Medina in November, its police force spent more than a year and a half with an escalating leadership crisis.

A recent survey of officers and civilian police employees showed morale had deteriorated under the previous administration, with widespread beliefs that special

assignments and discipline were based on favoritism

“The findings of this study suggest that WPD leadership must emphasize clear and direct communication of policies, procedures, and departmental goals. WPD personnel felt this was severely lacking in previous years and under (the) prior administration,” researchers Lisa Barao and Chelsea Farrell wrote in their April 29 report.

Medina asked the town to conduct the independent survey to measure exactly what has been troubling front-line officers, supervisors and civilian workers.

“Employees felt that they were rarely provided with information about changes to procedures or explanations of why changes were necessary. They also felt that their input was rarely solicited in planning or policy development processes,” Baroa and Farrell wrote.

Medina started off with several meetings with the lieutenants who have been running day-to-day operations, and with ride-alongs with numerous patrol officers. He’s looking for ways to send all supervisors and commanders to advanced training, said this week that he’s confident the department is already rebuilding enthusiasm.

“This study was their voice — so we’re going to be setting benchmarks and timelines,” Medina said, adding that as chief he wants to prepare his senior commanders to be ready for the top job. “My goal is that when I leave, two people will be ready to take my place. I don’t want to hold information close to the chest — the more I know, the more I can share.”

Lt. Michael Connolly, a

Wethersfield police officer for 24 years, said he is pleased with the department’s new direction.

“It’s great that he’d doing things to make this place even better,” Connolly said. “He uses ‘us’ and ‘we.” That’s very new for this place.”

Holton said that having a long-term chief with new ideas is a major improvement. Then-chief Jame Cetran was fired in mid-2021 following more than a year of controversies as well as a power struggle with thentown Manager Gary Evans. After Cetran, the department went through five months with two interim leaders.

“I liken it to a ship without a rudder. There were factions and cliques, a lot of things were mismanaged,” Holton said. “With this chief, there’s a good working relationship with management.

“We had no code of conduct. The Internal Affairs process was weaponized. If they liked you, you’d get a written reprimand. If they didn’t like you, you could get suspended. We wanted some structure,” Holton said.

The union worked with Medina to draft a code of conduct and also is making progress on issues from staffing to bike patrols, Holton said.

“We’re talking with him about family time, quality-of-life issues. He requested new officers — until now, we’ve been at the same staffing level since the 1970s, even though there are new businesses and new apartment complexes in town,” Holton said. “With this chief, if I pick up the phone and say ‘can we talk about this,’ it’s more than likely he’ll make the time to take the call.”