Thomas MacMillan, Paul Bass Photos
Officers Charles Tyson and Ron Perry on the job.
(Updated) As police shuffle shifts due to union rules, East Rock neighbors will be saying goodbye to two familiar walking beat cops.
Officers Charles Tyson and Ron Perry are both moving off their walking beat day shifts and into automobile-based night duty, starting Sept. 23. Tyson has been the walking cop assigned to Cedar Hill, and Perry has been on foot on Orange Street in East Rock.
Perry will be replaced by another walking cop. It appeared at first that Tyson would not be replaced, but police announced on Tuesday that supervisors found a way to keep a cop on foot in Cedar Hill.
Both cops lost out in a recent contractually required bidding process that allows cops to win shift changes based on their seniority. The bidding takes place at least twice a year and causes reshuffling as supervisors figure out how to best deploy their cops.
“On this bid, Tyson and Perry had lost the bid to keep their spots. They both had to go to night shifts,” said Lt. Kenny Howell, district commander for East Rock and Newhallville. He said he’s not sure yet if Tyson will be replaced in Cedar Hill with a dedicated walking cop there. But it doesn’t look likely, he said.
Perry, who’s moving to the 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift in Dixwell, will be replaced with another walking cop on Orange Street, Howell said.
Tyson will stay in the district, but Howell will have one fewer cop at his disposal overall, he said.
“When neighbors have talked to me [about this] they’ve seemed to be a little upset, and they should be,” Howell said. But after he explains that the bidding is part of a contractual process, most people seem to understand, he said.
The situation has upset neighbors in Cedar Hill and in the rest of East Rock, said East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker.
“In East Rock we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know our officer,” Elicker said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re losing that officer and the knowledge that goes with that officer.”
“Obviously I’m very disappointed,” Elicker said about the loss of a walking cop in Cedar Hill. “For the P.D. to look at this [East Rock and Cedar Hill] as one district and need only one beat officer is overlooking the geographical limitations. There’s no way officers on foot in East Rock will ever respond to something in Cedar Hill.”
Cedar Hill, a small pocket of East Rock cut off by the interstate from the rest of the neighborhood, struggles with crime, Elicker said.
“It’s important to have an officer on the scene,” he said. “Residents really loved having an officer there. They particularly appreciated Officer Tyson.”
“We have a problematic area that we’ve been trying to keep a close eye on,” said Marie Gallo, the vice-president of the Cedar Hill Merchants Association. “Losing our walking beat cop, that will make us more vulnerable for unsavory activities.”
“We cannot afford to lose that cop,” said Rebecca Turcio, an outspoken Cedar Hill activist. She said the neighborhood has one block in particular where drug-dealing is rampant. “We call it New Jack City. It’s really bad over there.”
“I’m seeing a decline in my community and I don’t even want to go outside anymore,” Turcio said. “And that’s with a beat cop. Imagine if we didn’t even have Tyson.”
No matter what, Cedar Hill will have a regular police presence, said Howell and Lt. Jeff Hoffman, who oversees patrol. Even without a walking cop, police will patrol the neighborhood regularly in cruisers, Hoffman said.
Howell said he may order his car-based cop covering Cedar Hill to spend an hour or two a day on foot in the neighborhood.
“I would love to put a walking beat in every neighborhood,” Hoffman said. “It’s just not the reality of a 230-person patrol” force.
More cops are on the way, however. Hoffman said four New Haven cops graduated Monday from police academy in Meriden. They’ll roll into four months of field training. Thirty-seven other cops will graduate from New Haven police academy in December, Hoffman said.
All 41 of those rookie cops will be assigned to walking beats as soon as they are done with their four-month field training, Hoffman said.
In the meantime, neighbors will have to say goodbye to two cops they’ve come to know.
“Changes like this happen periodically,” Hoffman said. “It’s a good thing that the community becomes attached to the officer. But nothing’s permanent.”
Howell said Officer Paul Kenney will remain on his walking beat on State Street from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Officers Rich Folch and Ryan Przybylski will continue walking there from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.
This story could use more information on the bidding process, and info on who the cops doing the bumping were. Is this an efficient way to deploy police, or is this biannual shuffling causing more problems than it solves?