After hearing a tear-filled testimony of a rookie cop trying to save her fledgling career, a divided Board of Police Commissioners Tuesday night took away her badge.
The 3 – 2 vote took place after a five-hour hearing at 1 Union Ave., the second extended public deliberation on the fate of Najae Poindexter, whom the chief moved to fire after an internal investigation revealed a host of associations with drug dealers and a murderer. The vote ended Poindexter’s career after less than a year on the beat and months of polarized public debate.
Poindexter finally got a chance to tell the Board of Police Commissioners Tuesday about her connection to people with criminal pasts. She admitted that she had unwittingly violated a police department rule on officer conduct in her associations with such people.
She told commissioners the reason she didn’t resign months ago — the reason that she subjected herself and her family to the scrutiny of a public hearing — was because she really wanted to keep her job as a New Haven police officer.
“I admit that some of the things that I have done, I could have done differently,” she said. “But I’m not different than the person that my FTOs [field training officers] praised me for. Even with having those conversations, my work was never affected.
“And no, I don’t want to ever make excuses, ‘cause I’m not that person. As I said before, I’ve worked very hard to get to the point where I’m at now. I could have resigned and I could have not had all of my business put in the forefront, and embarrassed my family or put them in awkward situations, but I chose to fight because this is a fight I felt like was worth fighting.”
Department attorney Lucan.
A 400-plus page internal investigation report determined that Poindexter had violated two sections of department Rule 15, which describes the conduct officers must follow or face “reprimand, suspension, reduction in rank or grade, or …dismissal.” Police Chief Dean Esserman placed Poindexter on paid leave and recommended that she be terminated.
The investigation of Poindexter began after a Jan. 17 traffic stop and arrest (first reported here) of a man driving a white Honda Crossover with his lights off — and allegedly carrying large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine. The car belonged to Poindexter. The final report concluded that five of Poindexter’s superiors warned her to stay away from her live-in boyfriend. The investigation also found that she had maintained close contact with a convicted murderer and a convicted drug-dealer. They found records of 17 phone calls made to her from a corrections facility in Chesire between Dec. 1, 2014, and Jan. 17, 2015.
Poindexter Tuesday night told commissioners that prior to the events that led to her internal investigation she was a new cop, who left the police academy fuzzy on the specifics of Rule 15 in particular, and on the rules and regulations of the department in general. Though she had been cautioned by a former assistant chief and the head of the police academy, among others, against her association with the accused drug-dealing father of her child, she told commissioners that she had naively thought that her connections to three other men with criminal pasts, all of whom she’d known since middle school, wouldn’t impact her career.
Navigating Two Worlds
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Poindexter is a child of New Haven. She was born and raised in the city and is a graduate of Hillhouse High School. The mother of one holds degrees from Quinnipiac University and the University of New Haven.
Like many people who have spent their entire lives in New Haven, she is connected to people who have criminal histories, including a father who is currently incarcerated and has been for more than 20 years. She tearfully told commissioners about how her brother was killed during her freshman year in college, in a police chase that ended when his car struck a pole.
Poindexter has no criminal history. Several of her childhood acquaintances have spent time in prison, including three of the four men whom the department would ultimately cite in its IA report as inappropriate people for Poindexter to maintain ties with and keep her job. The fourth man happens to be the father of Poindexter’s child, and her termination stems from his arrest in the Jan. 17 traffic stop. The man was driving a white Honda Crossover with his lights off — and allegedly carrying large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine. The car belonged to Poindexter. A cop delivered the keys to her home, and she came and retrieved her Honda. Months earlier police had stopped him and allegedly found marijuana in the car, then warned Poindexter, who was still in the police academy, to stay away from him.
Poindexter said at the time of the arrest of her child’s father, they were not in a romantic relationship, nor were they living together. She also said while she had let him have access to her car on previous occasions to take their child to dance practice and school, she had not authorized him to use her car on the night he was arrested. But she also said there was nothing preventing him from taking the keys because they were at her apartment.
Despite previous testimony regarding a landlord’s suspicion that when Poindexter and her child’s father were living together he might have been selling drugs, he doesn’t have any prior criminal history. When he had been stopped in her car while she was in the academy, sparking the warnings from department and academy higher ups, he wasn’t charged with a crime. She said she felt like department and police academy officials gave her conflicting information about how she should deal with her child’s father in order to maintain her career.
She characterized her child’s father as someone she has known for much of her life, who is hardworking, and “did the best he could” by their daughter as they tried to co-parent. While she had looked into terminating his parental rights at one point, she said, she had decided against that for the sake of their child, who, she said, “adores him.”
Ties That Bind
Tuesday’s hearing was a continuation of a hearing begun in February. At the February hearing, police department attorney Jarad Lucan had made much of Poindexter’s relationship to a man named Billy Ray Wright, who had been convicted of murder and is serving time in Cheshire. The IA report contains details of 17 calls between the man and Poindexter since she has become an officer. On Tuesday night, Lucan played three of those calls. A portion of a Dec. 9, 2014 conversation went as follows:
Wright: How you feel about the job? You think you goin do the whole 20 years?
Poindexter: No, I like it but it’s like mad politics. When I first came on I didn’t like third shift. I don’t like the politics. You’re like constantly guilty by association … You can’t help who you are associated with.
Wright: Yeah.
Poindexter: It’s kind of hard especially being like a black female. Like I don’t know it’s just kind of difficult. But I plan on going back to school because I’m like a career student or whatever. In January I was going to take some classes … I want to try to work there while going to school. Once I finish, hopefully that will be another four years, and then be out.
Despite what she said in December, Poindexter told commissioners Tuesday night that she liked being a cop and sought to become a New Haven police officer because she wanted “to protect and serve in a community that felt betrayed by the police.”
“Growing up, I felt like a lot of people I grew up with didn’t like the police,” she said. “They didn’t trust the police and I wanted to be that familiar face and make a difference in my community, the same community that my three-year-old has to live in and go to school in.”
Nothing To Hide
Poindexter pointed out that she had disclosed her connection to Wright during her background investigation, and “at no time was I informed that that relationship was going to be an issue.” Poindexter’s attorney, Marshall Segar, entered into evidence a New Haven Register article that detailed the fact that Wright’s murder conviction had been overturned last year, though he remains in prison awaiting a new trial. The defense provided some evidence that Poindexter was turning into a capable officer having earned official weekly reports of exemplary police work during her field training on at least three occasions.
While it is true that she tweeted with Rodderick Swilling, who is on parole, the defense argued that she didn’t send the tweet while she was on duty, but before her shift started. She said that while the police department views Swilling as someone she shouldn’t associate with, it might be hard given that her cousin is engaged to his cousin and they likely would see each other at family functions.
Asked about Roy “Jamma” Reid, who had been convicted of narcotics and weapons charges, she confirmed that he had visited her home. But she noted that it had only been once and that while they both knew each other from Hillhouse High, they weren’t close friends. Poindexter has changed her cell phone number and no longer communicates with Wright, or any other incarcerated person other than her father, she said. She said the investigation had given her a different perspective.
If she had it all to do again, she said, she would cut ties with certain people and not let those relationships jeopardize her career.
“Rules Don’t Bend”
Esserman had the option of changing his recommendation after hearing Poindexter’s testimony Tuesday night. He held to his recommendation, pointing out that it was Poindexter’s responsibility to know the rules and abide by them.
“I’m in a tough spot, but I can’t bend the rules for one person,” he said. “The rules don’t bend.”
At least two commissioners had heard enough to make them vote against accepting the chief’s recommendation to fire Poindexter.
Commissioner Gregory Smith (pictured left) told Poindexter that he had been listening to hear if she would take ownership for some of what had happened leading up to the hearing and heard that in her remarks. “I just wanted you to keep it real with us,” he said. He along with Commissioner Kevin Diaz voted against termination.
Diaz (pictured right) said he felt “there was clear evidence that there was a violation of Rule 15.” But if the city is committed to attracting police officers from where he lives in Fair Haven and in Newhallville, similar issues will come up, he said. “I was hoping that there would be an opportunity at a second chance.”
Diaz and Smith both expressed concern that they had to make a decision quickly. They each would have liked time to deliberate, possibly in executive session. Because the hearing was public they could not go behind closed doors to deliberate further. Commissioner Emmet Hibson abstained from the vote. Commissioners Anthony Dawson, Richard Buckholz and Stephen Garcia voted in favor of Poindexter’s termination. Garcia questioned Poindexter prior to the vote asking specifically if she knew what a general order was and that Rule 15 was part of the department’s general orders governing how she behaved as an officer. When she said no he seemed frustrated that she expressed ignorance of what should be foundational for officers.
Poindexter had no comment after the hearing. Her attorney, Segar, said that because Poindexter was a probationary officer, the police union’s role in the case is at its end and she can’t appeal the decision. She can, however, pursue other legal avenues on her own, he said.
Previous coverage of this case:
• Probe Question: What Did Rookie Know, & When?
• Cop’s Connection To Drug Arrest Sparks IA Probe
• Cop Was Warned About Companion’s Dealing
• Esserman Moves To Fire Rookie Cop
This is a heart wrenching story. I admit that when I read the previous articles I felt that she should probably be terminated. But after hearing her side of the story, I feel exactly the same way Diaz and Miller felt – she deserves another chance. And I feel this way because of my experience of having my child grow up in New Haven and how difficult it is to completely cut off ties with those who fall by the wayside.
Rather than bending the rules, I think it would add a commonsense approach to them. A little understanding and compassion wouldn't hurt here.