Early Thursday morning an armed car burglary suspect opened fire on two East Hartford Officers and a citizen complainant while fleeing from the scene of the crime with his accomplice. Fortunately by sheer luck nobody was struck by the bullet, however the suspects managed to escape (Click here for the full story). This incident seems to be part of an escalation that's occurred over the last few years and has really ticked up over the past 12 months. We've seen things like car break-ins, thefts, and shootings increase in frequency, as well as more suspects fleeing from Officers trying to stop them, both in cars and on foot. Now we're seeing suspects responding to Officers with deadly force for daring to try and stop them from stealing a few bucks out of someone's cup holder.
This escalation is most likely related to the current anti-Police attitudes embraced by our State politicians who emboldened criminals with their Anti-Police "reform" bill that they forced through along party lines last summer. Our hands have been tied and our members have been demonized by rhetoric pushed for political gain, and the bad guys know it.
But we've written about this problem before, and we warned of it along with numerous other Unions and Police groups before the law's passage. Now those ominous predictions are coming to fruition. But I think we all hoped that even with the national media and the politicians turning on us and using the Police as scapegoats for their failed policies, that we'd at least have support from our Administrators who used to be cops themselves way back when. But that hasn't been the case.
When that shooting occurred Thursday morning Chief Sansom was out of State on vacation, so he had left his number two man Deputy Chief Hawkins as Acting Chief in his absence. When DC Hawkins was called in the early morning hours and informed about two of his employees being shot at, he never came in to work to see the scene for himself or check on his guys, or even just show his support. Instead he made a few phone calls and then presumably went back to bed. As if that wasn't bad enough, when the members on scene requested he send the Detective Bureau out on overtime to help collect and process evidence so we could try to identify the suspects before they catch another Officer off guard, DC Hawkins actually pushed back and questioned why we needed Detectives to come out before eventually relenting and allowing only one Detective and an Investigator to come in. This behavior just further shows that this Administration is beyond maintaining even the mere appearance of giving a damn about their employees' wellbeing.
Their sole concern these days seems to be cutting the budget and pinching every penny they can. That is unless of course we're talking about raises for themselves where Chief Sansom just took a $30,000 raise (sorry, "market adjustment") for himself and Hawkins is proposed to get an $11,000 bump with the new, unnecessary Assistant Chief position that's being created for him. Meanwhile their employees continue to be some of the lowest paid in the region and that shows no signs of changing.
This Administration's policy of slashing costs with no regard has helped put us in this hole we're in today. Our pro-active unit has been completely dissolved, our Detective Bureau is rarely ever allowed to come in and do details to target crime hot spots and other issues, and even several members of our Traffic Unit are being required to do double duty by also performing Patrol functions. And on top of that any Officer who tries to do pro-active work has to worry about having IA come after them even if something completely out of their control goes wrong.
A Police Department isn't a business, we don't sell anything and we don't make money. Our job is to stop and prevent crime, but we don't control the criminals, or when or where the crime happens. When crime goes up you need to put guys on it, and that costs money, but that's just the price of having a good Police Department.
