East Rock and Newhallville, meet Lt. Ken Blanchard. Dixwell, meet Sgt. Sam Brown. They’re your new “district managers,” or the top cops in charge of your neighborhoods.
Assistant Police Chief Luiz Casanova Wednesday announced the appointment of Blanchard (pictured) to run the city’s combined East Rock-Newhallville district. Lt. Kenny Howell, the district’s previous top cop, retired from the New Haven force this month to become the new police chief in Millbury, Mass.
The department is planning eventually to break the district into two separate districts, one for Newhallville, one for East Rock, each with its own top cop, Casanova said. But in the short term the department has too few supervisors. Casanova said the plan will have to wait until the new crop of sergeants, whose promotions the Police Commission approved Tuesday night, “get seasoned and get some street experience.”
Blanchard originally took over as Dwight’s top cop last July, then went out on injury leave. (Sgt. Rob Criscuolo has since taken that command.)
Meanwhile, Sgt. Sam Brown has taken over as interim top cop in the Dixwell district, which, aside from a murder Tuesday, has been among the least crime-plagued neighborhoods in town lately.
it got that way under the direction of former district managers Lt. Anthony Duff (now head of the police department’s internal affairs division) and then Sgt. Donnie Harrison. Since Harrison retired last year, Howell had temporarily assumed command of the Dixwell district in addition to his Newhallville/East Rock duties.
Howell may have officially retired this month, but he was already done at the NHPD when the article of his new job ran on December 21, 2012. So, that means NO ONE was responsible for both Districts for over four weeks. There was no Temporary D.M., for either District, during those times. Who did the District cops go to with issues/concerns about the Districts? Who did the District Residents/Businesses have to reach out to?
During that period, were those Districts even reviewed in the weekly CompStat Meetings? (Paul, you go to those meetings; were those districts passed over in CompStat?) It seems that a department dedicated to Community Policing dropped the ball for both the cops and the public in those districts. As well as saddling a D.M. with the responsibilities of two separate districts for several months instead of putting a new D.M. there.
By the way, Donnie was a great cop and supervisor, but he retired as a Sergeant, not Lieutenant.
[Bass: Thanks for the correction on Harrison. Howell in fact continued to serve as D.M. into January, as far as I was told.]