nothin Chief’s Departure: Not If, But When & How | New Haven Independent

Chief’s Departure: Not If, But When & How

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Chief Esserman.

(Opinion) The question is no longer whether Dean Esserman will return to his post as chief of New Haven’s police department. The question is when exactly he will leave, and more importantly, how.

Mayor Toni Harp last week placed Esserman on a three-week paid leave after yet another incident of this losing his temper in public, insulting and berating someone, and creating a scene.

Theoretically Esserman could return to his post after completing a series of publicly unspecified steps.

But he’s not coming back. Whether or not he fully knows it yet.

Another devastating accusation against him emerged Friday: a human rights complaint by an 18-year staffer in the chief’s suite that Esserman repeatedly bullied” and demeaned her and other women, reduced her tears and shaking” by yelling at her when she didn’t immediately her an order to dial a phone number for him, and creating a reign of terror” in the office. Sixteen witnesses signed on to the statement.

If it were just that one complaint …. or the several complaints filed by employees upset they didn’t get promotions … or the outrageous incident at the Yale Bowl in 2014 when the chief yelled at an elderly usher and threatened to shut down a football game because he couldn’t get in without a ticket … maybe the chief could remain in the job. Maybe.

But at this point he can no longer command the respect and control of his department. Or mete out discipline. As far back as the Yale Bowl fiasco, he was unable to discipline a high-ranking cop who clearly violated a department general order when she seized and threw to the ground the phone of a citizen who video-recorded her.

Say Esserman somehow survived all those episodes; the allegations will keep coming. Many will be accurate. Both within and outside the department, New Haveners have seen him inexplicably lose his temper and ream out people for bizarre reasons, leaving people in tears or shaking their heads wondering what just happened. A department that demands its officers respect citizens and carry out community policing cannot have a chief who so regularly and publicly abuses his position and disrespects and demeans both his workers and the public.

Esserman lost a 170 – 42 no-confidence vote not just because of a few resentful East Haven-style cops. He lost the vote because every faction in the department, including officers who applaud his accomplishments and bear no personal grudge, concluded he cannot steer the ship any longer.

As union President Craig Miller put in in a conversation with the Independent last week: I think he’s accomplished what he wants to accomplish here. I think it’s got the point where he’s got to leave. The morale is [low]. We need to reorganize and restructure this department and get it going back on track and not have somebody going around treating people in the community unlike the way they want officers to treat the community.”

Outside of a handful of politically connected ministers whom he feeds pizza at monthly get-togethers in his office, Esserman has no real pockets of support left in the community, either. And politically? The Board of Alders has given up on him.

Reality has sunk in at 1 Union Ave. and throughout town this past week. People know he can’t come back.

Esserman survived in the job to this point because he also accomplished much in New Haven. Under his direction, the police department has helped save lives. Crime has fallen steadily for five years; in some cities it has risen. He has a brilliant mind, a keen sense of strategy, a laser focus on shepherding ideas to fruition. Yes, the officers do the hard work every day. But good officers can’t succeed without leadership that points them in the right direction. Esserman brought back a smart, humane, effective community policing program that has officers walking the beat, solving small problems before they grow bigger, working hand in hand with federal and state agencies to dismantle violent gangs and offer their members second chances.

Like all departments, New Haven’s has more challenges to tackle, from respecting citizens’ First Amendment rights to hiring more black and Latino cops. A mayoral task force has been at work studying the issue. But New Haven wouldn’t trade its police department for any other.

So the question now is how to ease Esserman’s departure in a way that keeps that progress going and causes the least possible damage.

Esserman still has a year left on his contract. Removing him is not as simple as, say, firing an at-will mayoral appointee Even those seemingly simple firings can lead to lawsuits, as in the case of two Harp administration officials who filed legal challenges this past week after the mayor fired them for, in one case, insubordination, and incompetence, allegedly costing the city money through incompetence.

Also, for all Esserman’s bad behavior, no one has credibly accused him of shirking duty, acting corruptly, or failing to produce results. The problem is that he can no longer run the department.

One solution may be for the city and Board of Police Commissioners to accept his resignation in return for paying him the rest of his contract. That would fairly give a man who gave five years of his life helping to make New Haven a safer, better city time to work out his personal affairs and land back on his feet. It would avoid any costly legal battles. There is precedent for such an arrangement.

To cover the cost, the Board of Police Commissioners could consider not filling two assistant chief positions. New Haven used to have only one or two assistant chiefs. The department created a third at the recommendation in 2008 of a national policing policy group. Then it added a fourth. It’s unclear whether right now the city needs so much top-level bureaucracy.

Acting Police Chief Anthony Campbell could serve out Esserman’s term as chief. Meanwhile, the department can test out the idea of returning to two assistant chiefs. The department has two other assistant chiefs besides Campbell in place already. If they leave, qualified, experienced cops are ready to move up.

We don’t need to look for outside saviors again to come in and reorder the department. We don’t need consultants. Dean Esserman has put New Haven put on the right track. We have the talent to proceed on it.

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