Decision Expected In Sergeant Test Appeal

 The Personnel Appeals Board is now scheduled to meet and deliver a decision in the matter of the appeal of the Sergeant's Promotional Exam on July 12th. We're now over two years into this process and are pleased to finally see it come to some sort of resolution. Though it was disappointing to see the Town continue their trend of doing everything in their power to keep this process hidden in the shadows by even excluding the Appellants themselves from the last hearing on June 30th where their attorney delivered their closing statement. I can't think of any legitimate proceeding where a plaintiff or appellant would be excluded from their own hearing where remarks are being given on their behalf. It defies logic.

This entire mess began because of the Town's complete lack of transparency with the stakeholders. Clearly they have learned nothing from it because all they have done throughout the process is double down on that lack of transparency. Until the entire testing and promotional process is reformed and made to be completely impartial, fair, and open, with a clearly defined rubric and rules, it's very likely that these problems will continue because employees and the public will not have faith in it. 

The Union has approached the Town numerous times in the past two years with ideas on how to fix the testing process to ensure it is completely fair. We've even asked to simply have a meeting where we could all sit down to discuss the matter and try to come to a mutually agreeable solution. Yet every single time we've asked, the Town has refused to even have a discussion with us. It's clear that they have no interest whatsoever in fixing this problem. Meanwhile the Town is bleeding tens of thousands of dollars in overtime costs while the Supervisor shortages continue as the appeals process plays out. 

Does EHPD Really Have a Lying Problem?

 In the past 11+ years that I've worked at EHPD, up until a little over a year ago I had only seen one non-probationary employee terminated, and I can't remember hearing of anyone being found guilty of lying. Yet somehow, in the last 15 months or so we've had five members investigated for "lying" and four terminations. So what's changed? Let's look at a brief overview of some of these cases of alleged "lying" and see if we can figure it out.

In one case we had an Officer with over 20 years on the job, who stated in an Internal Affairs interview that he was escorting a lost motorist to the highway. He was asked where he began the escort and at first wasn't sure, but after being pressed for an answer eventually gave a location. The IA Investigator went to multiple businesses along his route and asked to view their security cameras. Two of the businesses complied, one near where the Officer claimed he began the escort, and another near the end. The camera near the starting point didn't show the vehicle the Officer described behind his cruiser. However, the camera near where the escort ended did in fact show the exact car he described as the very next vehicle on the road a short distance behind the cruiser. 

Now any reasonable person would take that information and figure that perhaps the Officer was mistaken about where exactly the escort began, but clearly the escort did occur based on the second camera confirming his story. However this wasn't enough for our IA division, they still accused the Officer of lying about the escort, and Chief Sansom terminated him. 

Then we had another case that has been detailed here before, where two 20+ year veteran Officers were accused of making statements to members of a construction crew on a job site during a conversation. There was no evidence other than the statements from four workers, who actually contradicted each other on some points, and one of whom even admitted that he was on a different job site in another part of Town when the conversation in question occurred, and didn't actually witness anything first hand. However when the Officers denied the accusations against them, they were also charged with lying simply because they disagreed with the people who were accusing them. By this standard, you're not even allowed to defend yourself against an allegation without being called a liar. Apparently due process isn't a thing we do in East Hartford any more.

Lastly we have the most recent case involving a car chase of an armed felon in a stolen vehicle that ended in a crash. Here again the Officers were asked numerous questions about exactly where they were at precise times during the incident, over two months after it happened. Prior to the interview IA had already pulled surveillance footage, and GPS data from the cruisers. But IA didn't allow the Officers to view any of this information before answering their questions. Some of this data was actually pretty inaccurate however, and months later when the Officers were finally allowed to see it after the investigation was over, they found that it seemed to show one of the cruisers in different locations at the same time, and at one point even shows a cruiser moving backwards. Note that at the time this incident occurred we did not yet have body cameras.

Despite all of these inconsistencies in the evidence, when the account the Officers gave put them a couple hundred yards away from where IA thought they were based on videos and GPS the Officers were never allowed to see, they were still charged with lying by IA. Keep in mind that even based on the evidence from IA, the Officer's cruisers were still so far away from the suspect vehicle that they would have been out of visual contact with it well before the crash even occurred. So really their exact position on the road was kind of trivial to the substance of the case itself.

This is a pretty dangerous standard to have for an investigation in the era of cameras being everywhere, including on our bodies. In this case the Investigator has all of the footage and evidence, but you're not allowed to see it. But if the answers you give to the questions solely from your recollection don't match up perfectly with what's on the video that you can't see, then you're branded a liar. This doesn't make sense. 

The IA Investigator goes on to claim in his report that Police Officers are special in that they should have the ability to perfectly recollect everything that occurs during "stressful" and "chaotic" incidents without error. This is simply and obviously untrue. Police Officers are regular people, we get tunnel vision when we're stressed, and sometimes the exact order of events gets crossed up. We've all been through the trainings where we saw Officers who were interviewed after critical incidents and incorrectly recollected how many shots they fired, or where exactly people were at a given moment, etc... Scientists have even studied this phenomenon in first responders specifically and found that even in those who are expected to handle it, stress still causes the impairment of memory.

So what's changed in the past year or so, have veteran EHPD Officers just gone nuts and decided to start lying about minor details en mass? I personally don't think so. You see, this sudden flip of a switch from Internal Affairs where everyone is suddenly lying, coincided with a change of personnel running the division, namely Lt. Joe Ficacelli, who is the lead IA investigator. His name has come up here before, where we mentioned how he himself was terminated from his former employer, the Hartford Police Department, while he was in the Academy after they found some "inconsistencies" in the information he provided during his background check surrounding his steroid use and car crashes (click here for story). Is he looking for some kind of redemption for his past by making these accusations against others? I don't know.

What I do know however, is that Lt. Ficacelli was asked about his past with Hartford back in December of 2020 while he was testifying under oath in a hearing before the State Labor Board. But when the Union attorney began asking him about what happened to result in his termination, according to the transcript Lt. Ficacelli stated that he was "vindicated" in civil court. He then went on claim that he believed he had signed a non-disclosure agreement with the City of Hartford that would preclude him from speaking about the matter in the hearing. The Hearing Officer then stated that if he was the subject of an NDA then he couldn't be required to answer the questions about his termination.

So naturally this piqued my curiosity, and we made a few phone calls to the Hartford Police Department and filed an FOI request. After some time they were able to dig up the agreement that Lt. Ficacelli had cited to get out of answering the questions during the hearing. Upon review of the document we found that the City did not admit to any wrongdoing in terminating Ficacelli, and even had it clearly written that they were only agreeing to the settlement to avoid paying further legal costs fighting his lawsuit. The City merely agreed to sponsor Ficacelli to attend the POST Academy on the explicit condition that once he completed his training, the City would NOT employ him as a Police Officer, and he'd have to seek employment elsewhere. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't describe signing an agreement that states you're not going to get a job from an employer who terminated you, as being "vindicated." 

Additionally, paragraph 5 of the settlement clearly states that while Ficacelli is not allowed to speak of the details of the agreement to the general public, he is allowed to discuss it if compelled by "compulsory process of law." Such as testifying under oath in an official proceeding before a body such as the State Labor Board. So he actually shouldn't have been allowed to refuse to testify, and mislead the Hearing Officer.

So using the standard that Lt. Ficacelli has applied to the people his office has investigated, wouldn't these inaccurate statements that he made, under oath, also qualify as lies? Perhaps he mis-spoke, or mis-remembered some of the details? Well that reasoning didn't seem to resonate with him when he was the one doing the investigating. What we know is that he hasn't been investigated, or even written up, so I guess it's not lying when he does it, just everyone else? Seems like a bit of a double standard.

Fringe Benefits

 Anyone who's worked Patrol over the past year or two knows that the EHPD fleet of vehicles is in pretty bad shape. While we have a few newer vehicles many of the older ones are in various states of disrepair and are constantly in and out of the shop for repairs due to break downs or crash damage. As a result many of the cars that are still on the road end up running 24/7 as the oncoming shift often has to call the outgoing shift in off the road to take their cars.

So, we were glad to see in some documents we received that we are budgeted to get 6 new cruisers, and one new K9 vehicle. The existing K9 cars are in especially bad condition, being Crown Victoria models that haven't been produced since the 2011 model year.

However it was pretty surprising to see this sentence in the document that after the patrol vehicles were purchased, "remaining monies to be utilized for purchasing a 2021 Chevy Tahoe LS for the Chief of Police." While East Hartford Police Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs have long gotten free take home cars as a fringe benefit, this purchase is surprising because Chief Sansom just recently got a 2020 Ford Explorer. So I wouldn't think that SUV is already so worn out that he needs to replace it with a brand new 2021 Tahoe with a $52,600 starting MSRP. And his Deputies are also currently driving relatively new Ford Explorers as well.

The other problem with this is that ever since Chief Sansom was hired, he has taken to purchasing non-Police package vehicles for himself and his Deputies, instead opting for more expensive, fancier civilian models. The previous Chief, Mark Sirois, would purchase a new vehicle for himself nearly annually, but his take home vehicle was usually a basic Police package fleet vehicle, the same as everyone else. That way when he got a new vehicle, his old one could simply be rotated into the fleet at no loss to the overall Department. With these civilian spec vehicles Chief Sansom opts to purchase however, there is very limited use for them after he's done with them since they can't be equipped for Patrol and aren't pursuit rated.

Chevrolet actually sells two models of Police specific Tahoes, a PPV and SSV, which can usually be had for less money than the civilian models, and come pre-wired for Police equipment like radios, computers, and lights. However these models usually come with a far more basic exterior appearance, and a stripped down interior devoid of higher end features, they prioritize function over form. On the civilian model the Chief is purchasing for himself, the Town will also have to pay extra to get it wired up on top of the already increased purchase price, further inflating the cost.

So what does any of this have to do with us? Well it comes back to a recurring theme on this blog, where the Town and their officials have consistently told us that they don't have money to afford things like training, equipment, raises, or better health insurance. But when the time comes to buy the Chief yet another new up-specced SUV or other Administrative want, suddenly the cash flows. They seem to be selectively broke when it's convenient for them, yet flush with cash when they want to be. So I thought I'd try to find a few things the Department could purchase with about $55,000 if the Chief could bear to drive his old 2020 Explorer for another year. 

For about $53,000 we could acquire another new K9 car. The three in use right now are relatively dilapidated, and only one currently appears to be budgeted to be replaced. 

For about $51,000 you could also purchase brand new ballistic vests for about half the Department. Manufacturers usually recommend replacement about every 5 years.

For just a few thousand dollars we could get all new, and a greater number of computers for the Patrol report writing room. Currently we don't even have enough computers for an entire squad to use them at the same time, and often times at least one isn't working. It's not uncommon to see Officers standing in the back of the room waiting their turn to use a computer, especially during the overlap period between shifts. 

In fact, for $55,000 you could even outfit about half of Patrol with brand new laptops (Or all of Patrol with refurbished). This way each Officer could have their own computer that they put in a docking station inside the car like many other Departments do instead of having desktops in the building and tablets permanently installed in the cars.

$55,000 can be used to pay for a good portion of the cost of a used armored vehicle for the SWAT team. They haven't had an armored car since the old one caught on fire while driving down Route 2 a several years back and have since resorted to driving around in what is effectively a box truck. A new armored truck would obviously make it much safer for our team members to operate in the field on volatile scenes.

$55,000 could also pay for about 957 hours of overtime so Officers and Detectives can do things like follow up on cases and respond to crime scenes. Or you put together crime prevention details to tackle the epidemic of auto thefts and car burglaries that seems to have no end in sight. Or you could just use it to pay for the overtime we're incurring every day due to being short staffed.

You could also use that money to pay for the necessary retraining we all now need to re-learn how to do our jobs without getting arrested under the new Police Accountability Act. This law has fundamentally changed how Policing works in Connecticut, yet we haven't really received any new training on what we're supposed to be doing differently now. This has left our members in limbo wondering what to do, and at risk of having their lives ruined by simply doing what they have been trained since day 1 of their careers.

Then of course there's the obvious, we could just buy another Patrol car... and have money left over.

I could keep going on, but I think the point is made. The priorities of the people in charge here are just backwards. A good manager would want to ensure that the people working on the front lines have the training and equipment they need to do their jobs effectively, and are well compensated before spending money that we supposedly don't have to buy unnecessary new family vehicles for themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

There will be a new Mayor coming into Office by the end of the year, hopefully whoever that ends up being will take a hard look at how the dollars are being spent at EHPD.

The End Is In Sight - Sergeant's Test Update

 Last night the Personnel Appeals Board held the final hearing with witness testimony in the matter of the Sergeant's test appeal. They scheduled two more hearings, one on June 14th where closing arguments will be given, this hearing will probably still be subject to the gag order and therefore closed to the public. And a final hearing on June 23rd where the panel is expected to issue it's decision. This final hearing should be open to the public if anyone wants to attend. There is also the possibility with the State opening things back up that the final two hearings may be held in person at Town Hall rather than online.

We're coming up on the two year anniversary of the date this test was given and everyone is eager to get this resolved. We can only hope that the PAB will take this opportunity to fix this process and institute reforms in the testing process going forward such as hiring an independent firm to conduct the testing, and/or video recording the interviews to create a clear and indisputable record of the process so these lengthy and arduous hearings can hopefully be avoided in the future. 

Fourth Times a Charm?

This week yet another EHPOA member filed suit against Chief Scott Sansom for civil rights violations, this time Federal Court (Click here for story). This case involves a member who was improperly terminated back in 2013 after being arrested in a criminal case where the charges were later dismissed. Our Union filed a grievance on the employee's behalf due to disparate treatment compared to other employees who committed similar acts and were merely suspended, and eventually won his reinstatement at the SBMA (State Board of Mediation and Arbitration) in 2015.

Immediately after being reinstated, Chief Sansom terminated the employee a second time based on the same allegations that had already been argued before the SBMA and thrown out in his previous case. This second termination was clearly retaliatory and the Administration was admonished by the Arbitration Panel to "cease and desist from refusing to comply with their prior order" to reinstate the employee, and characterized their actions as an "unlawful circumvention" of their prior decision. 

The Administration then appealed the overturning of this second termination to State Superior Court which upheld the decision of the SBMA and also ordered the Town to reinstate the employee. The Town appealed the decision again to the State Appellate Court. Prior to a hearing at the Appellate Court the Administration and the Union negotiated a settlement agreement to reinstate the member with back pay and agreed that the Chief would take "all necessary steps to assist" the member in regaining both his POST and COLLECT certifications so he could resume his career as a Police Officer. 

The employee was reinstated in November 2016 and began working as a "Service Aid" while he completed his POST recertification process which he finished in 2017. POST subsequently recommended the member be reinstated as Police Officer pending his recertification with COLLECT.

At a COLLECT hearing in 2017 attended by our member and the Police Administration to rule on his eligibility for recertification, it is alleged that members of the Administration deliberately sabotaged the Officer's chances by instead of endorsing his recertification, they discussed the previously dismissed allegations against him and effectively argued against his reinstatement.

In 2019 the member had another opportunity to regain his COLLECT certification pending a written recommendation to COLLECT from the Chief of Police. It is alleged that Chief Sansom refused to submit said letter or provide supporting testimony which resulted in the member's COLLECT recertification again being denied. These actions are an obvious and deliberate violation of the Settlement agreed to by the Town, the Union, and the Member.

In the time since his reinstatement the member has been subject to retaliatory behavior from the Administration such as denying him the right to leave the building for his lunch break, something that every other in-house employee is allowed to do without question. He's also been assigned to the front desk doing menial duties traditionally reserved for injured employees, and he has not been allowed to do any meaningful or fulfilling work.

This pattern of behavior by Chief Sansom and his subordinates such as Deputy Chief Mack Hawkins, has clearly been retaliatory and meant to punish and humiliate the employee with the intention of getting to him to resign so as to accomplish the Chief's original goal of ending the member's employment with the Town.

This pending litigation is now the fourth time in his short tenure as Chief of Police that Scott Sansom has been sued by one of his employees for violations of their civil rights. Two of these cases have already resulted in substantial settlements being paid out by the Town, and another one is still pending before the CHRO. How much longer is the Mayor and Town Council going to continue tolerating this pattern of behavior by Chief Sansom that keeps costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement and attorney's fees? 

No other Department head in East Hartford has faced the sheer quantity of allegations and lawsuits from their own employees that Chief Sansom has. If this was any other regular member of the Department receiving consistent complaints such as these they'd be pulled from duty and thoroughly investigated by Internal Affairs. But instead in this case the Town just pays out the settlements and further enables his behavior. It's long past time for Town Council to send him on his way bring in someone more competent and capable to fill the role who isn't  consistently creating these issues with their employees and exposing the Town to liability and bad press.

Personnel Appeals Board Update

 We were scheduled to resume the PAB hearings virtually last night after nearly a year's delay due to COVID concerns, with another hearing scheduled for tonight. Unfortunately one of the panel members didn't show or wasn't aware of the hearing and it was cancelled. Tonight's hearing was also cancelled due to some miscommunication about scheduling that we thought had been ironed out. It's very disappointing and ridiculous that this process has been unnecessarily dragged out this long while our members have patiently waited. 

Even the Mayor chimed in during the hearing to voice her displeasure with all of the delays. But we'd like to point out that this process could have and should have been wrapped up over a year ago had the Town not insisted on pursuing their gag orders to block the people involved from publicly speaking about what actually happened with the test scores. Or they could've just not done what they did that caused our members to file appeals in the first place. Of course we can't disclose what happened here due to said order, but needless to say people don't usually pursue gag orders to cover up totally legitimate behavior, so read into that what you will.

So this process drags on further, we have new dates scheduled though the end of next month now. Remember this test was initially given back in the Spring of 2019. The Town has been unable to fill these Sergeant vacancies since then, and in fact more vacancies have opened as more Sergeants have since retired. I can't imagine how many tens of thousands of dollars (or more) the Town has spent paying overtime to existing Sergeants to fill in for the vacancies that should have been filled by these candidates over the last 2 years. Nor can I calculate how much income the candidates have lost out on due to the actions of the Town in this matter. Hopefully someone can do that math and find a way to make these members whole.

So What Did All That Cost?

 It was brought to my attention the the Chief took offense to one of our previous posts ( click here ) where we discussed how he was having our Officers do constant "security checks" on the personal property of local Politicians who have routinely demonized Police Officers, on the taxpayer's dime. Apparently at the root of the Chief's frustration is that he felt I incorrectly implied that he was giving favorable treatment to these individuals because of their status as Politicians. So I did a little research to see if I was wrong to characterize it as I did, here's what we found;

From January 16th through January 20th (5 days) EHPD dispatched 289 "Security Checks" to the homes of 4 local Politicians including John Larson, Jeff Currey, Henry Genga, and Jason Rojas. Yes you read that right, two hundred and eighty nine. That's about 58 times each day that an Officer was pulled from their regular duties and dispatched to check on these politician's homes. 113 of those checks were just for John Larson, that's about 23 times per day. Mind you that during that entire time, Mr. Larson was actually in Washington DC, so we were sending Officers to check on an empty house 23 times a day.

Based on my experience while these checks were going on, each one took roughly 15 to 20 minutes for the Officers to travel, check on the home, and clear. When you add that all up, it equals up to about 96.33 man hours spent over those 5 days conducting these 289 security checks. Multiply that by the hourly top step wage of an East Hartford Officer and it comes out to approximately $3,690 spent over the 5 days. That's not an Earth shattering amount of money, but it seems like quite the expenditure for an Administration that has made a habit of not even sending Detectives out to shooting calls, or put together details to target the epidemic of car break in's and thefts because they supposedly can't afford to pay the overtime to do these necessary Police functions.

To validate further however, I wanted to see if these security checks are something that the Department routinely does for all citizens regardless of their status as Political figures. So we checked to see how many security checks the Department has dispatched over the course of the last five years prior to January 16th 2021. Unfortunately, we found zero, not a single one. Based on these pure and simple facts, I don't see how Chief Sansom can deny that these Politicians received treatment not afforded to the run of the mill East Hartford resident.

Now we all understand, we're Cops, and we routinely have to do things we don't like and put our personal feelings aside and just do our jobs. But to strip on duty Officers from their regular duties patrolling the Town to act as security guards for Political figure's private property just seems wrong. We have private businesses in Town who request Officers to provide extra security for them on a regular basis. In those cases the Department doesn't pull on duty Patrol Officers, instead they have the business hire an Off Duty Officer at their own expense and pay them overtime to provide the business with the security they need. Even the Town has done this in the past to have Officers watch over the site of fairs and events (i.e. Riverfest, Dragon Boats etc...) the night before. Isn't that what should've happened in this case?

 I'm not even going to get into how the Administration never shared with the membership why we were doing these checks or what we were supposed to be checking for, or if there was any threat to us in doing them. But I'd just like to point out the fact that the way that they did this whole thing just shows how completely out of touch Chief Sansom is with the people who work for him, and he doesn't seem to care.

EHPOA Begins Labor Contract Negotiations

 Our Contract Committee has officially opened negotiations with the Town for a successor agreement to our current contract that expires on June 30th of this year. As usual there are rules in place that restrict anyone from speaking publicly about the details of the negotiations as they are ongoing so we will not be able to use this site to update our members on the status. Normally we would use our monthly Union meetings to inform our membership about what's going on with the negotiations, but it's unknown at this time when we will be able to resume holding regular monthly meetings. We'll try to put out information as best we can, as always feel free to approach any member of the committee and ask questions. The Committee members this time around are 261, 288, 320, 329, and 348.

More Rungs on the Same Ladder?

At last week's Town Council meeting, Mayor Leclerc proposed a new Administrative position within the Police Department that she wants to call "Assistant Chief." We currently have four Deputy Chief positions (Two of which are vacant after DC Chris Davis' recent departure.) who report directly to the Chief and sit above the Lieutenants in the chain of command. The new proposed position will sit above the Deputies and just below the Chief. You can find the new proposed job descriptions by clicking this link and skipping to page 24. You can also watch the proposal being made at the Town Council meeting by clinking this link and skipping to 22:33.

Reading the job description, it appears as though this new Assistant Chief is going to absorb most of the higher functions currently assigned to the Deputy Chiefs and will become the only person who deals directly with the Chief. So it seems logical to assume that Deputy Chiefs will be getting pushed down the ladder to make room for this new rank that's going to be absorbing some of their job duties.

Where I think this is going to cause a problem is that we are already in a position where our Lieutenants and Sergeants have basically become redundant, especially in patrol. This redundancy has been the subject of several grievances, infighting, and other issues in my tenure on the Executive Board, as Sergeants and Lieutenants fight over their overlapping job functions and related pay. The Department currently treats Lieutenants and Sergeants as completely interchangeable and only defines them for Patrol purposes as "Supervisors" rather than individual ranks with unique functions, responsibilities, and staffing levels. In fact over the last few years we've seen squads run only by Lieutenants with no Sergeants, and also squads run entirely by Sergeants with no Lieutenants. What's the point of having multiple ranks if they can both do the same job?

So if you have this problem of two overlapping ranks, it's seems counterintuitive to add yet another rank to the mix. If you add an Assistant Chief and push Deputy Chiefs down the ladder, they will naturally encroach on the higher job functions currently performed by Lieutenants, effectively becoming "Super Lieutenants." This in turn will push Lieutenants further down into the realm of Sergeant's duties and make them even more redundant, exacerbating the problems we already have. In a sense you're cutting more slices from the same pie, without making the actual pie itself any bigger. We're not adding any divisions to the Department or increasing in size, in fact we're smaller now than we used to be. 

This issue of redundancy was not always the case. If you look back to the tenure of Chief Mark Sirois, he ran the Department with just two Deputy Chiefs, half of what Chief Sansom has had. At that time you had one Deputy Chief manage the outside functions of the Department, i.e. Patrol, and the other manage all of the internal functions. He managed to do this by utilizing his Lieutenants as what they should be, upper management. Lieutenants in that era had more responsibility, independence, and a more clearly defined role in the Department. Lieutenants could run individual units and had Sergeants beneath them who managed the actual day to day operations of the Officers and Detectives.

Chief Sansom changed this arrangement by having Deputy Chiefs running individual Divisions of the Department, like one who just manages the Detective Bureau, one just managing Dispatch, and another who only manages IA with a few ancillary duties thrown in. This setup just adds more layers of bureaucracy to the chain of command and in my opinion impedes our efficiency. Our Lieutenants are more than capable of carrying out these duties with minimal Supervision, they don't need to be micromanaged by a swarm of Deputies.

I think a better solution is keep us at two Deputy Chiefs as we currently have, who report directly to the Chief. Then utilize Lieutenants as actual managers, and give them a clearly defined role and the ability to make more decisions on their own. On the Patrol front give unique, clearly defined job descriptions to both Sergeants and Lieutenants and corresponding individual minimum staffing levels for each job. They are separate ranks for a reason, they should not be considered interchangeable, or made to do each other's jobs.

The proposal is not all negative however, the Mayor does mention that she wants to open up the new, neutered Deputy Chief rank to Union members. I know some members will disagree with my assessment because they want the opportunity to get the Deputy Chief's position themselves or have another Union member get it. However, I'd argue that while this appears to be a positive on the surface, they will still be locking our members out of the top two positions in the Department. There's no reason for this, and in fact prior to Chief Sansom's tenure it wasn't the case. Both Chief Sirois and Deputy Chief Vibberts came from within our ranks as did several other previous Chiefs. The decision to lock us out was an arbitrary change made by Town Hall, and if they wanted to they could undo it just as easily and open up the opportunity to ascend all the way to Chief up to our members once again. In fact I think that's what they should do and it's what I've been arguing should happen for the last year and a half.

Reach out to me and let me know what you think.

Racial Disparity In How EHPD Internal Affairs Cases Are Handled

Since I've been involved in the Union Executive Board I've noticed trends in how Chief Scott Sansom's Administration has handled disciplinary matters in our Department. Some trends are easier to spot than others. In one case that you may have heard of there was a dispute between two of our members and a contractor, Paramount Construction who was doing work for MDC in our Town. The dispute stemmed from the fact that when the contractor hired for the job in the morning they had said they were going to pay whichever Officer was hired from a certain time in the morning. But by the end of the job a different foreman was on site who refused to pay the Officer who worked the job the hours that the morning foreman had said they would before the Officer was hired. The Officer who worked the job called his Supervisor who had spoken to the morning foreman and there was a verbal disagreement. Ultimately the Officer's overtime slip was signed buy the Contractor, but the Officer decided he was not going to submit the slip to payroll for payment because he knew there was some disagreement over it and he didn't want to cause a problem, meaning he effectively worked the job for free, he was never paid. The Supervisor in this case did not work the job and never claimed or demanded, or attempted to collect any payment for himself.

Disputes over hours worked are not out of the ordinary here at EHPD, we can cite several examples of similar complaints. However in this particular case the Department took the extraordinary step of putting the employees involved on Administrative leave and initiating a criminal investigation. This investigation took nearly 2 months of going back and forth between the Department and the State's Attorney's Office while they tried to figure out what they could charge these Officers with until they finally settled on Attempt to Commit Larceny 2nd, despite the fact that neither one ever attempted to collect any payment. We don't know the specific details of the allegations because the Department has refused to show the warrant to the Officers or their attorneys at the direction of Chief Sansom.

Contrast what happened in this case to what happened in a similar case just a few months earlier at EHPD. The case number for this is PSB 2020-18. In that case one of our members filled out an overtime slip for one and a half hours that the employee was found to have not actually worked, except in this case the employee actually submitted the overtime slip and attempted to get paid for the unworked hours. During the course of the IA Investigation it was also found that this employee had left work early and come into work late several times without prior authorization. In this case however there was no criminal investigation, nobody was put on Administrative leave, and there were no warrants completed, and the State's Attorney's Office was never even consulted or made aware of it. In fact despite the IA complaint being sustained and the allegations being more serious than they were in the other case we discussed, the only discipline issued in PSB 2020-18 was Verbal Supervisory Counseling, they were basically told "hey don't do that again."

Why is there such a disparity in how these two parallel cases were handled? The only difference we can see is that the two Officers who got criminally investigated are both African American, while the Officer who was given verbal counseling is White. This raises another question though, which course of action was the appropriate one? Did the White Officer get the standard treatment for this type of offense while the Black Officers got screwed over, or was the treatment they got the standard procedure while the White Officer was "hooked up?" Historically when we look back at other people who've been investigated at EHPD for similar offenses, they all seemed to have gotten treatment similar to what the White Officer got in PSB 2020-18, which implies that the Black Officers are being treated especially harsh.

We can go back a few years and find several other examples of White employees being written up and investigated by IA for the same exact allegations of inaccurate overtime slips, and not a single one of them was put on Administrative leave, or criminally investigated.

Our Internal Affairs division is headed up by Deputy Chief Chris Davis formerly of Manchester Police, and most of the investigations including these two, are conducted by Lt. Joe Ficacelli, the disgraced former Hartford Police recruit who was fired from that Agency. Are they the ones influencing the disparity between how these cases are handled with their recommendations? Or does the responsibility ultimately fall at the feet of Chief Scott Sansom who has the final say over what discipline will be issued after a case is completed?

We saw this pattern again in another IA case last year where an African American member was being investigated for a routine citizen complaint stemming from a traffic stop by Deputy Chief Chris Davis, but DC Davis missed the contractual timeline to complete the investigation (180 days). This issue had happened not long before with a White Officer, and in that case Chief Sansom was obligated to close the investigation due to them going over the timeline. However when the same exact issue occurred with the Black employee a short time later, Chief Sansom stated that "the timelines don't matter," and proceeded to issue discipline to the employee anyway in violation of our collective bargaining agreement. That matter is currently under appeal at the Labor Board, but it's another prime, contemporaneous example of Chief Sansom and Internal Affairs handling disciplinary matters for African American employees more harshly than they do for White employees, even to the point of breaking the contractual rules to exact punishment.

Unfortunately we've also seen this trend in other areas of the Department. A few months ago Chief Sansom decided to shake up the Traffic Unit. He removed an African American Officer from the Traffic unit, and when that Officer asked why he was being removed and if it was due to his job performance he was told that it was just because he had been in the unit for a long time and they wanted to give other employees a chance at that position. However at the same time the Black Officer was removed from the Traffic Unit, Chief Sansom allowed a White Officer who has been in Traffic nearly twice as long to remain in the unit. So is there one timeline for "too long" for Black Officers and another separate, longer timeline for White Officers?

We see it once again in the case of another African American Officer who was terminated years ago inappropriately, and eventually had his termination overturned by the Labor Board. When he was re-hired several years later he signed an agreement with the Administration stating that they would do everything in their power to help him get re-certified as a Police Officer. Recently when this Officer had his hearing before the Board, the only thing they required from Chief Sansom was a letter stating that he endorsed the employee being re-certified. Chief Sansom refused to write the letter or make any recommendation on the Officer's behalf in violation of the agreement he signed, that issue is now the subject of a lawsuit.

Chief Sansom's Administration has previously been the subject of multiple lawsuits by his employees for discriminating on the basis of disability and gender, one of which is pending, and the other was resolved via a settlement. So it's not surprising that we're now seeing a pattern of potential racial discrimination as well.

As a Labor Union we demand equal treatment for all of our members, regardless of race, gender, or any other reason. The fact that our Administration appears to be giving preferential treatment to certain employees over others is deeply troubling, especially when it appears to be based on race.

Negative Effects of Connecticut Anti-Police Bill Already Being Seen

 After an especially violent weekend in Hartford, the HPD Police Union put out a press release tying the violence to the recent passage of the Democrat sponsored Anti-Police Bill. You can read that press release below:

We agree with the statements made by our friends across the river, and in fact we warned this would happen before the bill was passed. The Courant reached out to us yesterday for a response to this statement (you can read the story here.) Unfortunately they chose not to publish the entire quote I gave them, which is a huge reason why we started this blog in the first place, so that we could get our voice out there, unfiltered. So here is the quote in it's entirety:

"I think it's obvious to anyone just looking at the numbers, car break ins and thefts are out of control, and nobody is doing anything about it. The bars and nightclubs being closed due to COVID is probably actually helping the violent crime numbers stay down, if those were open I bet shootings would be off the charts, just look at what's happened with the few unsanctioned large gatherings we had this summer, they almost all ended in violence.

Let's be clear though, Officers aren't intentionally stepping back just to make a point. It's happening organically because we have to protect ourselves, our careers, and our families. Even if you do everything right you can still end up in a bad situation purely by chance and have the mob calling for your head, and now the Democrat politicians who run this state are on their side. They're making us out to be the bad guys to help themselves get votes, and the only examples they can cite as to why we're so terrible are things that happened a thousand miles away."

As you can see the second paragraph gives a lot more context to the first, and I think that context is important. Many of our Officers still have a strong desire to go out there and fight crime, we enjoy chasing down bad guys and bringing them to justice, that's why we signed up in the first place. But when the politicians and the media have put us in a position where there is too much personal risk for us to do our jobs, it's a lot more palpable to just sit back and wait for the call and become totally reactive.

This is personal to me, I grew up in a bad neighborhood in Southwestern Connecticut in the 80's and 90's, and like many people who grew up in that time period I remember how bad things were back then. You were taking a risk every time you went outside, violent crimes were committed with impunity, gangs ran the streets, and drug addicts were roaming the neighborhoods conducting their transactions in the open with money they got from pawning stolen property. If something wasn't bolted to the floor or locked up it was getting stolen. 

What changed things was the introduction of Proactive Policing, getting Officers out there in the community stopping crimes before they happen. All these tactics that people today badmouth were what really turned the tide and gave us the relatively peaceful and safe society we have in this state today. I know they made the difference because I witnessed it first hand in my own neighborhood and it's what inspired me to become a Police Officer.

Today you have people in this state living in safety because of the actions of those brave Officers who worked in literal warzones 30 years ago, criticizing what those men and women did to create the comfortable, safe world they now have. How quickly people have forgotten where we came from as a State and a Nation. This bill and others like it across the Country will lead us back down the crime ridden road to where we were in the 80's and 90's. Criminals now have the upper hand, backed by the Democrats who are running our State into the ground.

To our members, stay safe, stay out of trouble.

Flip-flop - Sergeant's Test Debacle Update

We've been busy lately and haven't been able to update promptly so apologies there, but last Monday we finally had a hearing for the Sergeant's Test grievance at the Labor Board. The hearing was held virtually via Zoom, this was our first time having a remote hearing and we have some bugs to iron out for the future hearings but I think we've got a grasp on it. It definitely doesn't work nearly as well as in person hearings though.

As you may remember, back in November of 2019 before we began the hearings the Town challenged the arbitrability of the grievance and the Union won the decision unanimously, you can read about that here. This means the entire 3 member panel, including the Town's advocate, agreed that the matter could legally be arbitrated and a binding decision issued, and we then proceeded to have hearings until the shut down happened.

During the shut down the Town filed a motion to reconsider the arbitrability back in June, the panel did not even respond to their motion at that time as the matter had already been decided in November and we'd already begun hearings. When we commenced the virtual hearing on August 17th, the Town again asked the panel to reconsider the arbitrability based on the same exact argument the panel had rejected back in November and June, but this time with a new twist. This time the Town threatened to appeal the panel's decision to Superior Court regardless of the outcome of the hearing. Faced with the prospect of being dragged into Court and possibly having their decision overturned, the panel quickly called for a private caucus. 15 minutes later they returned and stated that they had now unanimously decided that their previous unanimous decision to grant arbitrability was actually incorrect, and they were now declaring that the matter cannot be arbitrated, even though we had already held hearings, submitted evidence and heard witness testimony. So they effectively dismissed the case without a decision.

We were all left shocked since we believe this situation is unprecedented for a panel to overrule themselves halfway through a case. Either they weren't confident in their decision, or they just didn't want the hassle of being sucked into a Court battle and decided that a little bit of corruption on a promotional exam is acceptable if it means they can skip a Court date. The whole situation is a joke and really shakes our confidence in the integrity of the Labor Board. We've lost cases there before, and we can accept that as long as we're given a well reasoned, thoughtful decision, even if we disagree with it. But this was nothing more a punt plan a simple, they just didn't want to deal with the hassle so they sent us on our way. We hope this doesn't set a precedent for future cases where either side can just threaten to inconvenience the panel so much that they toss the case just to avoid dealing with it.

This isn't a huge setback however, the Labor Board was always just a secondary venue for this case. The primary focus is still assisting the members who have appeals of the test before the Personnel Appeals Board. However we still haven't heard anything about when, or how the PAB hearings will resume. So the process will still remain on hold until those hearings conclude and we get a decision there.

Despite last week's outcome, the Labor Board process did have significant value since it helped us get all of the test documents made available to all of the candidates so they could see what really happened. Getting those documents out there served to strengthen the resolve to get answers and a better process that's less prone to corruption in the future.

We'll update further when we know more.

Anti-Police Bill Working It's Way Through Legislature

Many of our members have reached out to us over the last few days asking about the Anti-Police bill that was approved by the State House of Representatives the other day. People have asked what we're doing related to it, what they can do, and how or if, they should be doing their jobs, so we'll briefly try to respond here directly and honestly.

First and foremost, this bill is not yet law. It has only been approved by the House, it must still go to the Senate where they can approve or reject it as is, or they can pass it with provisions added or removed and then send their version back to the House for approval. Once a final version is passed it goes to the Governor for approval or veto. While I assume some version of this bill will pass, we're not going to offer any guidance or make any decisions until we see what the actual final language that gets passed is and what it means for us. Unfortunately the Legislature seems to be fast walking this bill without giving it the debate it deserves so they can go on vacation sooner. You can click this link to read the text of the bill and see how each Legislator voted.

As for what we've been doing, our attorney has been in contact with the Legislature on behalf of us and other Police Unions he represents, check your work email for more information. Additionally our Union Vice President wrote letters to several State Representatives on our behalf. Unfortunately there's not much more that we can do. As a labor Union, the only thing of value we have to offer to politicians are endorsements and campaign contributions, and right now the Democrats who are pushing this bill see us as the enemy and want nothing to do with our endorsements or our money. In fact they'd probably prefer we endorsed their opponents so they can show the mob driving them how anti-Police they are. So we just don't have much, if any political sway in this situation.

As for what you can do, you can click this link to find your State Legislators for your home district and East Hartford and write them an email or call their office to express your feelings on this bill. My only advice is if you're contacting a Democrat, it's probably best not to identify yourself as a Police Officer and rather present yourself as a concerned citizen, otherwise they may write you off immediately.

We don't have a crystal ball to look into to tell you what effect of the final bill will be until it's passed and we have time to analyze it. But if it goes through in it's current form it's highly destructive to our profession and we'll probably never be able to hire a qualified person again unless our salary is doubled. But for the time being, keep your cool, go to work, and let's see what happens. But just to be safe if you have 15 or more years on and you're still on the street you should probably take a look at your numbers and start thinking about heading for the exit IF we get the worst case scenario. Similarly if you have less than 5-7 years on you may want to start seriously looking at what your out-of-state options are if you wish to continue in Law Enforcement. We're not sounding the alarm just yet, and I'm hopeful the Senate will fix this mess of a bill before it passes, but I think people should start having these discussions with your families now so you have a plan if you need to go that route.

We'll post further updates on this as needed.

EHPOA Contract Extension Passed

Back in January our Contract Negotiating Committee opened negotiations with the Town on a successor agreement to our Labor Contract expiring June 30th, 2020. We held several productive meetings with the Town's committee and had put together a few tentative agreements. Unfortunately when the meeting size restrictions went into effect it became extremely difficult for us to hold further meetings. We tried waiting it out for a bit but eventually it became clear that it would be an excessively long time before we could hold a meeting, and should arbitration be required with the delays and backlog at the Labor Board, we wouldn't have a settled contract for quite some time.

As a result our committee proposed to the Town's committee a one year extension to our current contract with no changes other than a 2% general wage increase, which should serve to keep us in line with inflation. Our membership ratified the extension and the Town's committee agreed to the deal and brought it to the Town Council with their recommendation of passage. Today the Town Council passed the extension.

This extension will get us to January when we will have to re-open negotiations, hopefully by then we will be able to hold in person meetings without restriction and we can pick up where we left off. For this reason we will probably keep the same committee so we won't have to start from scratch.

Thanks to the Town Negotiations Committee and the Town Council for helping get this agreement done.