What Actually Happened

 There's been a lot of rumors and false information going around the Department about the case involving Officer Jones and Sergeant Allison and many people questioning why I've come out so fervently in their defense, so I'm going to set the record straight and back it up with facts.

At the heart of the issue is the accusation by the Town that Officer Jones tried to get paid for hours on a road job that he wasn't entitled to, and that Sergeant Allison somehow assisted him in doing so. This assertion is not true. Lieutenant Don Olson who was the author of the warrant wrote on pages 4, 5, 7 and 15 of his affidavit that because Officer Jones arrived on the job site at 1045 and worked until 1530 that he was only entitled to be paid for the 5 hour minimum because he had only actually worked 4.75 hours. Per our contract if an employee works a private job  they are paid a minimum of 5 hours just for showing up, and if they work in excess of 5 hours, then they are then paid for a minimum of 8 hours thereafter. 

This job in question however was not called in for an Officer to work ahead of time, it was called in while the job was in progress. As Every EHPD employee knows, the long standing past practice for overtime jobs in progress or "call ins" is that we get begin getting paid from the time we receive the phone call to come in to work and accept the job. NOT the time that we actually arrive at the Police Station, and NOT the time that we arrive on the job site. Lt. Olson even admits this fact on page 5 of the warrant when he wrote "However, occasionally Private Duty jobs are ordered at the time of the job due to an emergency, a change in the job date or environment, or in some cases the contractor simply forgot to hire an Officer. In these cases, the Officer is paid from the time they are called, accept the Private Duty job and are prepared for duty." However, despite admitting this fact, Lt. Olson later contradicts himself in the warrant by saying the start time should have been the time Officer Jones arrived at the job site, when by his own admission this is not the practice in every other instance of a job like this.

Based on his warrant, Lt. Olson NEVER attempted to obtain phone records, or check the call logs of the hiring Officer to ascertain what time Officer Jones received the phone call to come in and work the job which would've been the actual start time of the job for payment purposes. This information is critical because had Lt. Olson included it in the warrant it would've shown that Officer Jones was actually entitled to claim in excess of 5 hours of overtime which under our contract would result in him automatically being paid for 8 hours of overtime which would disprove the claim that he attempted to get paid for hours he wasn't entitled to. However this information was either never looked for, or was known and never included in the affidavit.

However, even without the information from the call logs, Lt. Olson should've still been able to deduce that Officer Jones was entitled to claim time worked prior to 1045. On page 11 of the warrant Lt. Olson writes that he obtained security camera footage of Officer Jones arriving at Police HQ at 1031, and then leaving in a Department vehicle at 1042 to go to the job site. Now any reasonable person would agree that if Officer Jones is seen arriving at the Police Station at 1031 to work a job he was just called in for, that it is highly likely that he was called in at some time prior to 1031. Now remember, because his end time was 1530, a start time prior to 1030 would've entitled him to 8 hours of pay, not the 5 hours that Lt. Olson has claimed. This fact should be especially apparent to a trained and experienced investigator, however this information wasn't included in the warrant. Had it been included as it should have, I think it's highly likely that this warrant would have never been signed by a Prosecutor or Judge and these Officers never would've been arrested.

On page 15 of his warrant, Lt. Olson admits that Officer Jones never turned in the overtime slip in question because he knew the company had raised an issue over it at the job site and he didn't want any trouble. Officer Jones handed this overtime slip to Lt. Ficacelli when he was notified that a complaint was filed. This is contrary to Lt. Olson's previous claim on page 12 of his warrant that it was "intercepted." Officer Jones never turned the slip in to payroll or attempted to get paid for the job as the warrant claims.

So why was critical information withheld or not searched for? That's the million dollar question (literally). Was it done out of malice, error, or ignorance? Obviously there are several processes ongoing that will eventually find an answer to that question. And to be clear I'm not putting all the blame at Lt. Olson's feet, this warrant and process went though several layers of Supervision all the way up to Chief Sansom who was ultimately pulling the strings. It's now obvious to us why when we asked to see a copy of the warrant when it was issued I was told by Lt. Olson that per Chief Sansom it was to be withheld, even from the arresting Officers. They were hoping to keep these facts secret for as long as possible so they could push through a bogus IA before we saw what they were being accused of.

This simple complaint should have been handled administratively, like every other complaint of this nature has been historically, contemporaneously, and concurrently. Instead the Administration chose to make a mountain out of a molehill, arrest 2 innocent cops, and then send out the most detailed Press release I've ever seen to the entire state's media to publicly humiliate them.

Those are the facts, whether you like them or not. What happened here is abhorrent and none of us should stand for it, as Union members, as Cops, as Citizens, or just as Human Beings. So if you're still wondering why I'm standing up for these guys as strongly as I am, just know that if you are ever unlucky enough to find yourself in a similar situation, I'd be doing the same for you.

No December Meeting

 As expected, we're not going to be able to have a meeting this month due to ongoing meeting restrictions. As always, if you need anything feel free to call, text, email, or see an Executive Board member.

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.

Lawsuit Against EHPOA Withdrawn

 We're happy to announce that the suit filed against EHPOA that we detailed in an earlier post (click here) has been voluntarily withdrawn via a motion to withdraw filed last Thursday by the plaintiff former Officer Courtney Desilet. We'd like to congratulate Ms. Desilet on reaching her settlement with the Town and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.

No November Meeting

 Due to COVID gathering restrictions we are unfortunately going to be unable to hold a Union Meeting this month once again. As always if anyone needs anything, has any questions, or needs any rumors dispelled please call, text, email, or talk to one of the Executive Board members in person and we'll be glad to assist. I'm also going to try to attend some lineups to address members in person to try and make up for the lack of in person meetings.

Meeting Cancelled

 Sorry folks but the weather forecast Friday morning doesn't look very good for an outdoor meeting with temps in the 30's and freezing rain so the Executive Board has made the decision to cancel the meeting. We'll monitor how things are progressing and will try to hold a monthly meeting as soon as practical. In the meantime feel free to reach out to any Board members with any issues you're having.

In other news we did get dates in December for the rest of the outstanding grievances we have to be conducted remotely, some of them had been on hold since before everything got shut down, so it does seem like the Labor Board is back up and running which is a big positive for us.

Watch this space for updates.

Monthly Meeting MOVED

 Due to COVID concerns our October meeting is being moved outside, see fliers in the building for the new location. Same date and time, hopefully the weather cooperates. We'll keep monitoring how things are going but with winter coming it may be difficult to hold meetings outdoors so we may have to go back to suspending some future meetings. Stay safe everyone.

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.

October Meeting

 Our October regular meeting will be held on Friday October 30th at 0830 in the usual place. Hope to see you there.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

 You may remember back in October of last year we posted here that one of our members had filed a baseless CHRO complaint against our Union. Well we are pleased to say that back in May we got notice that the CHRO agreed with us and chose to dismiss the case after an initial review without even holding a hearing because they felt the complaint had no cause. You can read the dismissal letter here:

Unfortunately about a month ago we got notice that the complainant had re-filed the same exact complaint that had just been rejected by the CHRO in the courts. While this will be waste of ours and the Court's time we're confident that this process will yield the same results as the CHRO process, with a dismissal. If a panel like the CHRO that exists solely to hear these types of allegations rejected the case due to a lack of cause, then we can't reasonably see the general Courts coming to a different conclusion. However with the Courts being what the Courts are, and the additional delays to the legal process caused by COVID, it will be quite some time until we get any resolution in this matter. In fact it is probably likely that the Sergeant's test issue at the heart of this complaint will probably be resolved before this complaint is which would ultimately make it moot anyway.

If you wish to know our thoughts on the complaint you can go back and read the post from a year ago as they haven't changed since it's the same complaint as it was back then. Thank you everyone for your patience as we navigate this matter.

September Meeting

We will be holding our regular monthly meeting on Tuesday the 29th at 0830 in the usual spot. We should have a pretty packed agenda to try and fill everyone in on what's been going on since we last met.

Who's Next?

Does anyone have a friend at the FBI or SDNY??? Wonder if they'd be interested in our Sergeant's test situation.

On a completely unrelated side note, has anyone heard from former HR Director Santiago Malave since his sudden departure just as the shit was starting to hit the fan? 😆

Informative Links Regarding the Anti-Police Bill

Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting we held, please pass on the information you got to everyone who wasn't able to attend. Here are a few links you might find useful.

Bill analysis by Senate Republicans

Bill analysis by House OLR

House Voter Roll

Senate Voter Roll

Text of Bill 72 pages

If you read all 72 pages of the bill that's 72 more than most of the people who voted on it.

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.