New Chief Learned From Cop-Shoot Test

When New Haven got a taste of the national controversy over officer-involved shootings, the new police chief learned a quick lesson.

Anthony Campbell was just assuming the mantle of running the police department when two of his officers shot civilians in the space of three weeks.

New Haven had gone years without officer-involved shootings. Meanwhile, cities across the country erupted in protest over fatal shootings of black civilians by police officers.

Fortunately, no one got killed at Fair Haven’s Ruoppolo Manor public-housing complex on Aug. 16, when an officer shot in the leg a deranged man who vowed to commit ​“suicide by cop” and rushed at him with a knife. Or when another officer shot in the arm a Branford addict high on drugs and on a robbery spree who drove his car straight at two cops at the Church Street South housing complex on Sept. 6.

No protests erupted. No allegations of misconduct surfaced against the cop.

The incidents offered New Haven a ​“test run” of what could happen if a murkier officer-involved shooting occurs here.

In the first instance, the New Haven department fumbled the process of getting accurate information out fast to the public — a problem that proved at times deadly in other communities because it exacerbated tensions in more serious cases. Because of a new rule requiring the state to investigate local officer-involved shootings, police brass here mistakenly thought they had to defer to state police to release basic facts.

“A lot of of people who lived in the residence didn’t know what was going on. They saw all the police … They had no idea what was going on,” interim Police Chief Anthony Campbell recalled during an appearance on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

It ​“really hadn’t been thought out exactly how we communicate with the community what’s going on” in the immediate aftermath of an officer-involved shooting, Campbell said. ​“That’s one of the lessons learned” from the incident. (Two years ago the department found itself battered publicly when it spent days refusing to release basic information about a case captured on a viral video, in which a white officer slammed a handcuffed, unarmed teenaged black girl to a sidewalk.)

Top city cops discussed the slow information release in revisiting the Aug. 16 incident, Campbell said. They decided in the future to send out email blasts and robo calls with basic information in such cases. And to have their public information office get out information fast.

The latter approach was on display just three weeks later on the morning of Sept. 6. Before noon, the police department distributed a detailed account of the Church Street South attempted attack on the officers and the shooting.

Following one of the more recent controversial shootings by police, in Charlotte, N.C., a delay in the release of police video of the encounter became a flash point of mass protests.

“If you look at what’s going on nationally, the incidents themselves are bad. But what’s worse is that people feel this sense of ​‘there’s a cover up,’ or ​‘we cannot get information quickly,’” Campbell observed. ​“It’s natural as human beings: If we can’t get information, we fill in the void. Usually we fill it in with a lot of negative information.

“Getting information out as quickly as possible, and making sure it’s accurate information, is crucial.”

Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly, who appeared on the WNHH radio program with Campbell, agreed. She noted that sometimes police face a difficult decision in how much information to release. For instance: If a video shows the identity of witnesses, releasing that video can impede an investigation.

Daly and Campbell appeared on the program to promote a series of events they’re cosponsoring as part of National Community Policing Week, beginning this coming Monday.

On Wednesday, cops and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will hand out bike helmets donated by Yale-New Haven Hospital to local kids, at 4 p.m. at the Edgewood Park playground at Ella Grasso Boulevard and Edgewood Avenue. A bike parade will ensue down to the park’s basketball courts at Whalley and West Rock Avenue. There, a three-on-three ​“cops & ballers” basketball tournament will ensue: The managers of each of the city’s ten policing districts will field a team with one officer and a young person who has interacted with the cops.

The week will also feature a ​“justice forum” Tuesday at the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Church Street from 3 to 5 p.m. Top cops and activists will discuss the distrust that has become visible in relations between law enforcement and local communities, and possible solutions. The week will conclude with a forum with chiefs of police focusing on solutions, and a community policing awards ceremony.

Since the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others ignited the Black Lives Matter movement, Daly’s office has organized ongoing outreach events to strengthen community support and establish relationships that can keep tensions down if one of those high-profile incidents occurs here in Connecticut. She estimated that a quarter of her staff devoted time, often after hours and on weekends, to outreach efforts.

She and Campbell spoke about what Daly called ​“procedural justice,” about how far law enforcement goes to treat citizens right, even when those citizens need to be arrested or prosecuted for crimes.

“Most people understand … that you have a job to do,” said Campbell, who came to Yale from Harlem, where he grew up with a father involved in the drug trade, and who graduated from Yale Divinity School before becoming a cop. ​“It’s how you do that job. I’ve chased people, caught them with drugs, guns. If you treat them with dignity and respect, if you talk to them … Sometimes you let them smoke a cigarette before they get transported downtown. Get them to eat a hamburger. We solve so many crimes not because we sit in a room with a light bulb swinging. We sit there and have conversations with people, eat some Popeye’s together. It’s basic humanity; that’s where you get that balance. Acknowledging people’s basic humanity.

“You’re a police officer. You have a job to do. They just want you to be real.”

Campbell and Daly also spoke about what New Haven has been doing right with community policing. For instance, cops who live in public-housing developments get to live rent free. One of those officers lives in Ruoppolo Manor. Campbell said he was received warmly at a community meeting there a week after the shooting, with tenants telling him they felt safer there because they live with a cop. The city has pioneered some of the ideas other cities’ departments are exploring to boost community policing. But, all agree, more work remains to be done.

Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full conversation with Campbell and Daly on ​“Dateline New Haven.”