Thomas MacMillan Photo
Assistant Police Chief Ariel Melendez, who’s at the center of two recent cases involving alleged trampling of citizen rights, resigned Thursday — as investigations into those and similar incidents remained officially “ongoing.”
The city announced Melendez’ retirement in a terse two-paragraph press release Thursday afternoon.
Melendez (pictured above) has been on the force 33 years. His departure leaves the department with no New Haven police veterans in the highest positions. He is the only one of three assistant chiefs who was promoted from within the ranks; the other two assistant chiefs came from Chicago last year along with new Chief Frank Limon.
Melendez, who’s 52, did not return calls for comment this week, including one left after his retirement announcement. He will receive a $124,500 annual pension, according to mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga. His current salary is $105,000. Mayor John DeStefano Thursday said he won’t fill any more top cop jobs until pushing for pension rule changes. (More on that later in the story.)
Melendez’s seven-month tenure as assistant chief took a controversial turn last fall.
First came a police SWAT team raid of a private Yale student party Oct. 2 at the downtown Club Elevate. Five students were arrested; some students charged that police threatened to arrest anyone who used cell phone cameras or sent text messages. (The police reported that one student in particular, whom they tased, was attacking them.) The mayor eventually criticized the decision to send in the SWAT team as having escalated tensions in an otherwise non-threatening situation. Assistant Chief Melendez made the decision to send in the SWAT team.
The department has been investigating the incident since. Chief Limon said Thursday afternoon that internal affairs is “winding down” that investigation.
Melendez played an even more central role in perhaps the most visible case of alleged misconduct — most visible because the allegation about his behavior came in a police report, not just from the alleged victim.
That incident occurred on Sept. 25 but didn’t come to public’s attention until this Independent article on Nov. 11. A Wallingford man named Luis Luna was cycling down Crown Street around 2 a.m. when he saw police making an arrest. He stopped and from 25 feet away filmed the action with his iPhone. According to a police report of the incident, Melendez ordered him arrested for using his camera. Luna spent the night in jail. When he received his iPhone back, he reported later, his footage had been erased.
Click here to read about that incident and to click onto the police report.
Limon referred that case to internal affairs, too. He said Thursday that the investigation has stalled because internal affairs hasn’t been able to reach Luna.
Luna confirmed Thursday that police investigators tried to speak with him. He said his attorney advised him not to participate because he has a lawsuit pending against the department.
Limon has repeatedly publicly stated that citizens have the right to use their cameras to record police actions in public. He was asked Thursday why he didn’t put Melendez on paid leave after learning about this incident based on what was written in the police report. In part, he responded, because at the time he didn’t have a written policy in place on videotaping. So technically, Melendez wasn’t violating any policy. (That policy, he said, is just about ready to be announced and put into place. It’s been undergoing legal review.)
The chief was “absolutely” concerned when he learned about Melendez’s alleged actions that night, he said. “Especially when I’m telling the press that the public has the right to video police officer activity. Yes, absolutely. So it is a concern. That’s why I also wanted to have a full investigation and interview the complainant. It’s too premature to have” a final decision about the incident without hearing the complainant’s story, he said.
Melendez got into a third minor pickle on Nov. 22. He was driving home from the police station when he struck a pedestrian near the Church Street South housing project. The department’s accident reconstruction team investigated.
Limon said the investigation made clear that Melendez was not at fault in that incident. The pedestrian had apparently darted out of nowhere.
“There were plenty of eyewitnesses there who indicated there was no need to have an investigation,” Limon said.
Melendez reported an unspecified injury on the job recently. Limon said that under federal health law he can’t reveal the injury. He said Melendez was continuing to report to work; he would take off time to see a doctor twice a week and occasionally have to take a health day.
No Names Yet
Another similar, disturbing incident remains under investigation months after it occurred: A Sept. 10 encounter between police and a citizen with a video camera in a parking lot on Crown Street.
James Kelly, 22, of Hamden, was the citizen. Around 1 a.m. he saw police using force in the parking lot. He started his camera rolling.
On the video (click to watch) an unidentified officer is seen threatening Kelly to stop using his camera — and then slapping the camera out of his hands.
“You’re welcome to join” the beating, the cop told Kelley.
“You don’t take pictures of us!” the officer added.
Who was the officer?
Limon said Thursday he doesn’t know.
He referred the case to internal affairs. Capt. Denise Blanchard, who heads internal affairs, said this week that her office hasn’t yet started on it because it’s waiting on a report from the patrol division.
Limon said Thursday he plans to ask Capt. Bryan Kearney, who co-heads the division, for the name of the officer involved. “I haven’t talked to [Capt. Kearney] yet,” he said. “He just got back from vacation this week.”
Pension Calculation
Spokeswoman Mayorga offered this written explanation for why Melendez’s pension will be higher than his salary:
“(A). NORMAL AGE ANNUITY CALCULATION:
With the normal age annuity calculation (no rank up) his annual retirement benefit would be $87,150 ($105,000 salary X 83% = $87,150). He will be eligible for an 83% retirement benefit (the normal maximum benefit is 80%) due to the contractual clause which states an employee with 30 years of service and who gives back 30 accrued sick days will receive the additional 3% added to his benefit. He has indicated he will give back the requisite 30 sick days to qualify for the 83% benefit.
“(B). NEXT RANK UP CALCULATION:
With the “next rank up” calculation his annual retirement benefit will be $124,500 ($150,000 X 83% = $124,500), $37,350 higher than the normal pension calculation (A). He qualifies for this benefit since his average annual highest 4 years of earnings ($94,475.73) is lower than his current salary $105,000 which pushes him to the next rank status, Chief = $150,000).”
Earlier this week Mayor John DeStefano called for changes in how police and fire pensions are calculated, arguing that under the current rules the system will soon run out of money. Read about that here.
Thursday he released this statement: “Irrespective of Assistant Chief Melendez’s 32 good years of service, we have a pension system that is broken and that we need to fix. This is one element of the broken system. We have been working on a revision to the pension prevision for executive management and will introduce these changes to the Board of Aldermen next week. We seek to eliminate the plus one provision which is a hold-over from a previous union contract. We will not fill the remaining leadership vacancies in the department until we make these pension changes.”
In his first year as a cop, in 1979, Melendez earned $14,000, according to his personnel file.
Thomas MacMillan contributed reporting.
The pension system will run out of money within a few years.
Meanwhile, even though the median household income in the city is somewhere around $38,000, we have pensioners pulling in many times that amount, not working, and most likely not living within the city (therefore not contributing to the tax base).
Hope the Alderpersons are up to the task of dealing with this problem.