Wave Of Cops Retiring

Very sad to have all these officers leaving. It is worse knowing the recruits they speak of in training will not be ready to work on their own for over a year. Short sightedness by the current administration is the cause. Destefano worries about building schools and the board of education while shafting public safety in the city.

Tough to lose all that experience. Obviously it cannot just be replaced. But I am also saddened that many of the retirements are motivated by a need to juice their last year salary for pension purposes. I believe we should have fair salaries and pensions for public employees, especially those who risk physical harm on a daily basis, but the practice of stuffing overtime into a final salary calculation is the archetypal problem with public pensions in general. I sincerely hope that practice gets banned in all future contracts and that police officers simply get paid more up front so that we can attempt to both balance and create future estimates of our city and state budgets.

Your Tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker!

I wish Lt. Hassett all of the best. He has been a very important part of the improvements in public safety and relations between citizens and the NHPD. I hope we don't lose his passion, wisdom, and talent as he retires. Maybe he'll find a way to stay involved in improving life in New Haven neighborhoods. I, for one, hope so.

This is frustrating--the type of issue caused by awarding out of control union contracts in the first place.

Can't the city just come forward with a proposal that keeps the program the same for officers with 20+ years on the force?

We can't really risk losing so many senior officers at a time of transition and change. Crime will go up.

This is why I have--and will continue--to lay blame for the murder rate at DeStefano's doorstep.

What is not being said is that in the last year there have been seventy retirements from the department. Many of those have been supervisors, detectives, and the most experienced officers. I myself am a former sergeant and hostage negotiator, who left last August after twenty two years, and thousands of criminal arrests in New Haven. I always thought I would stay until I was sixty five, but I was really forced out at fifty by the threat of a future contract that would have been devastating for my family. The city always started negotiations with lofty claims of cutting everything, and then eventually would agree to a fair contract. This time it smelled different. The economy is so bad, and they actually did lay off sixteen cops, whom they had just trained at a huge cost. I had to wonder just how safe my pension and medical benefits, that I had paid into for twenty two years, were. If they were laying off large numbers of officers, who they had just trained, at a cost of over fifty thousand dollars each, then how can they afford not to cut my benefits? I have a family who depend on me for survival, and I am bound to do the best I can for them.
But there was more. As the city of New Haven built new school after new school, where good schools already stood, I watched the police department have no money to investigate crimes, process crime scenes,or properly staff shifts. I saw a once great department fail to stop, deter, or effectively investigate crimes,due to lack of funds, and I grew more and more frustrated.
New Haven has lost control of crime, and I wish them the best in getting it back. There are still many fine police officers there, both running the department, and in the rank and file. They struggle to do their level best every day, to cope with the problems that I have written about, while putting their lives on the line to protect the citizens there.
In short, rather than risk it, I left. Now everyone else who can, seems to be leaving too. I had my future threatened, and I protected it. I took my talents to another police department and I started over. I do miss many things about New Haven, but my family's security is what matters most.