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.

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.

EHPD Glocks Not Shooting Straight

Over the last few months since our last Department wide firearms training session in the fall of 2019, word has gotten out that a large number of the Gen 4 Glock 17 models that our Officers are currently carrying have a serious flaw. The flaw is that when the trigger is pulled the bullets don't go where the gun is pointing, instead they tend to go a bit to the left. From what we've learned the problem seems to get worse with more use, and a quick internet search shows that this has been a known issue with these guns for at least the last 10 years and Glock still hasn't fixed it. Our firearms staff has run this issue up their chain of command and has been in touch with representatives at Glock and the only solutions they have offered is to tell them to instruct our members to compensate by aiming to the right of the target, and moving the sights on some of the guns so far to one side that they're hanging off the slide. They also suggested that our Officers just don't know how to shoot Glocks and were simply holding the guns wrong.

This isn't the first time we've had issues with Glocks, when I first started working here we had the older Gen 3 Glock 22 that we had to get rid of because the firing pins were falling out of the guns. Granted these guns were older and had a decent number of rounds through them before they started falling apart, but it's still not what you expect from a brand that markets it's guns as having "unsurpassed reliability." When we were going to replace those guns our Department considered the then new Gen 4 Glocks. But during testing they noticed several of the guns had jamming and lock back issues which Glock at first denied, but later admitted to and instructed our armorers to use a dremel tool to modify the guns to make them work, voiding the warranty in the process. Due to that issue, our Department instead went with the Smith & Wesson M&P 45, which we carrier for several years.

The Smiths ended up having defective magazine springs shortly after we got them, but unlike Glock, Smith admitted to the problem and replaced the defective magazine springs free of charge like you'd expect from any reputable company. So when we switched back to Glock a few years ago I was personally surprised that we were doing business again with a company that we had several quality issues with in the past.

We did some testing with my gun, which was one of the defective ones a few months ago. My gun was shot from a fixed position on a bench from about 5 to 7 yards. This gun only had about 300-400 rounds through it at the time as I'd never shot it outside of a Department sponsored training session. You can see on the photo below the top red dot was the target we were shooting at and the entire grouping is 1 to 2 inches to the left. This isn't a huge deviation, but this is also a relatively close range, as you get farther away the shot will be farther and farther off target. I've also been informed that members who have put a lot more rounds through their guns are seeing much larger deviations since the problem seems to get worse with use.

The lower red dot in the photo is a brand new gun right out of the box shot in the exact same way by the same person. As you can see that gun is dead on target, the shooter even managed to put multiple rounds through the same hole. This pretty much blows their excuse of our Officers holding the guns wrong right out of the water.

This problem isn't limited to us or just to Police, if you do a Google search you'll find a plethora of posts on gun forums from private owners complaining of the same issue with these guns.

As I stated earlier, we've known about this issue for a few months but we've kept quiet on it because I wanted to give Glock and our Administration time to remedy the problem. But it seems at this point that there is no remedy coming, Glock has no interest in making it right and our Administration has no interested in forcing their hand or replacing the guns. As of right now these guns are still on the street being carried by our Officers. If one of our members were to be involved in a shooting tonight where something or someone gets hit that wasn't supposed to and the Department was aware that the guns weren't shooting straight and did nothing about it, who's going to take the fall? My members have guns with sights cocked to the side and are being told to aim to the right of what they want to hit, this is completely unsafe and unacceptable and should've never been allowed to happen.

Chief Sansom and DC Hawkins have been aware of this issue for months and could have used their leverage as a members of the State and National Chiefs of Police Associations to pressure Glock into making the situation right. Or brought the issue before Town Council to get funding to replace the guns with something else that works. Instead they've done nothing and left the defective guns in our holsters. Our Officers deserve to have a weapon that's reliable and works properly, we've been failed in this case by both the manufacturer and our own Administration.

In Policing, most of us will never have to fire our weapons outside of training throughout our entire careers. But when we do it's because we're in a high stress situation and lives are on the line. Shooting in these circumstances is instinctual, it needs to be point and shoot, we can't be worrying about trying to aim to the right or any other bullshit "fixes" to compensate for defective equipment.

I'm not personally a big "gun guy," I'm not a fan of one brand over another, so I don't care what we change to. But I'm calling on our Chief to dump Glock and their defective guns and find us something else that's reliable, easy to use, and most importantly, hits what we're aiming at. Also consider whether or not it's backed up by a company who stands behind their products and takes responsibility for it's errors. It isn't just our safety on the line here, but also that of the citizens we're sworn to protect. Let's avoid a needless tragedy and get this problem fixed NOW.

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.

Starting back up soon?

We just got word the other day that the Labor Board will be aiming for July 15th to begin hearing cases virtually. We have five pending cases right now, some of the more intensive ones like the Sergeant's test will probably be more difficult for us to effectively present remotely but the other side will have all the same challenges we do. This isn't our optimal solution as we'd much prefer in person hearings, but we're being told those may not begin until the fall, so this is our best chance to get things rolling again in a reasonable time frame. We don't have any dates yet, and I'm sure there are a lot of people waiting in line, but we'll update those involved once we know.

Our usual meeting spot is opening back up, but I assume they want to keep the capacity down for now so we're going to hold off until September to start having regular meetings again. If there's anything going on that needs our attention please reach out to anyone on the executive board.

More Delays

We just got word today that the Labor Board is cancelling hearings scheduled for July and is now scheduling into August. This means our hearing for the Sergeant's test grievance that was scheduled for July 2nd will be postponed to a later date.

Additionally we haven't heard anything about rescheduling the Personnel Appeals Board hearings yet so we don't have a timetable for that resuming yet.