Melissa Bailey File Photo
Reddish: Not surprised at IA probe.
Police previously investigated and warned a rookie cop months before a suspected dealer was caught allegedly using her car to transport drugs.
The rookie cop is now the subject of a police internal affairs investigation related to an arrest that took place in the Annex late Saturday night.
Police that night arrested a man driving a white Honda Crossover with his lights off — and allegedly carrying large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine. The car belongs to a police officer who graduated from the academy last October; a cop delivered the keys to her home, and she came and retrieved her Honda.
Police Chief Dean Esserman ordered an immediate internal affairs investigation Sunday into the incident. Click here for a full story on the incident.
Police previously investigated the woman’s connection to the man while she was still in the academy last year.
Thaddeus Reddish, who retired last May as assistant chief, told the Independent that he oversaw two separate investigations at the time, by the internal affairs and the training divisions. He said he personally interviewed the woman at the time. He said he told her that her companion, with whom she was living and who is the father of her child, was using her car to deal drugs.
“She claimed she didn’t know what he was doing,” Reddish said. He said he warned her not to be involved with him.
“This is no surprise,” Reddish said he thought upon reading the Independent story about this weekend’s arrest and subsequent IA investigation.
Police Union President Louis Cavaliere Jr. was present at the interviews investigators did with the woman at the time she was in the academy.
“We felt she had no connection” to any criminal activity, Cavaliere said. “She was cleared. She had no knowledge her boyfriend was conducting those kinds of activity.
“We spoke to her about having ties with people operating in this atmosphere, [about how] she should probably get away from him.”
Cavaliere said the union continues to support the woman in the latest investigation. “She did nothing wrong. She received a phone call from a police officer. It was explained, ‘Come and get your car.’ That’s what she did. I don’t see any violation with that.”
On Monday IA requested to interview the two officers who handled last weekend’s arrest. Cavaliere called that appropriate. He said he opposes IA interviewing the policewoman, because she was off-duty at the time of the arrest.
Assistant Police Chief Al Vazquez, who oversees IA, said he can’t discuss specifics of the current investigation.
“Right now she’s not guilty of anything. We’re investigating whether there was any wrongdoing on her part. “We’re going to find out whether or not she violated any department rules or any state laws.”
Asked why the department allowed the officer to complete the academy and continue as a cop after the previous investigations, Vazquez noted that she was already a member of the department while a training cadet. She couldn’t be terminated based on another person’s alleged actions. “You have to have just cause to terminate an employee,” Vazquez said. “She at that point was an employee.”
Efforts to reach the officer have been unsuccessful.
I have to say this is an impressive amount of light in such a short period of time since the arrest of the boyfriend. In my short life I have lived in Chicago, Bay Area of California, and a medium sized city in the southeast. While I am not in situations to have adversarial interactions with New Haven Police, my impression is they are head and shoulders more professional than the police in these other areas I have lived. While there is always room for improvement, it seems that community input is key and perhaps grudgingly welcomed by the NHPD.