A city cop shown in a citizen video bringing a handcuffed 15-year-old girl to the ground has no complaints on his record, according to a review of his personnel file.
The New Haven force hired Joshua Smereczynsky, who’s now 31 years old, on May 16, 2007. He trained for the job not at the New Haven police academy, but at the Connecticut Police Academy’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council.
Smereczynsky’s March 15 arrest of the 15-year-old outside Buffalo Wild Wings on Church Street has prompted protests from critics, as well as a support rally scheduled for Friday afternoon by fellow cops. An internal affairs investigation is ongoing. Smereczynsky was placed on desk duty this week pending completion of that investigation. (Update: The investigation exonerated the officer. He has been returned to patrol duty.)
Smereczynsky’s personnel file, reviewed by the Independent as a result of a Freedom of Information request, shows one piece of feedback during his seven-year-plus tenure: a March 28, 2011 commendation letter from then-Chief Frank Limon. Limon thanked Smereczynsky for an “exemplary job” of testifying in the successful prosecution of a man on gun charges, and for confiscating a stolen .357 Magnum revolver in the original arrest along with fellow Officers David Stratton and Ryan Przybylski.
Before joining the force, Smerecynsky, who is from North Branford, worked for a Guilford company called Zuse, Inc. He reported volunteering with the Project Choice Mentoring program in Middletown and Church on the Rock “mission work” in New Haven.
In a visit Tuesday with the 15-year-old girl’s family, Chief Dean Esserman described Smereczynsky as “a decent and compassionate person.” He said that when the officer saw a knife on the girl during the arrest, “he got scared.”
What about Esserman's "raised in a black church" comment. Was he referring to the volunteer work at Church on the Rock, maybe?