2 Top Cops Retire

by Staff | Apr 1, 2021 3:02 pm

(12) Comments | Post a Comment | E-mail the Author

More than four decades of New Haven policing experience is leaving the police department this month, with the retirement of two top cops who have clocked more than 20 years each on the job.

One of them, Assistant Chief Herb Sharp, served his last day in the role on Wednesday.

This was Sharp’s second retirement. He first stepped down in 2016. Then-Chief Otoniel Reyes pulled him out of retirement in 2019 to serve as assistant chief. He oversaw administration, including training, recruitment, and internal affairs

Chief Renee Dominguez said Thursday there are no current plans to replace Sharp. That leaves one assistant chief in place, Karl Jacobson. The department started hiring up to as many as four assistant chiefs at a time in response to a recommendation by a policing expert group in the wake of a 2007 corruption scandal. As of last month, there were three. But before 2007, the department traditionally had just one assistant.

Capt. Anthony Duff is also retiring. His retirement was announced Thursday at the department’s weekly Compstat data-sharing meeting. Duff’s last day is April 14.

Duff currently serves as the department’s public information officer. Dominguez said she is in the process of seeing who’s interested in the position.

A popular former Dixwell district manager and archetypal community cop, Duff was shot and almost killed when responding to a shooting on Oct. 12, 2019. The department, and the city, rallied behind him. (Read all about that, and about his career, in this story.)

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Comments

Avatar for Patricia Kane

Patricia Kane

We shouldn't vote on staffing until the City pays for a study that determines the proper levels for fire and police.

Avatar for Mary Brown

Mary Brown

Two good guys with a lot of experience! They will be hard to replace.

Avatar for One City Dump

One City Dump

The city will never do a study on proper staffing and employee mix/construct. Citizens have asked for this for a decade. The NHPD, NHFD and Education are all chronic budget offenders. How they community police and how they construct minimum staffing levels is antiquated and tired. But in the land of steady habits, it's easier to blame Yale, the racist suburbs and the state than to look at one's own house for the rampant waste of taxpayer dollars. New Haven only adds departments and staffing and contracts and expense, it never reduces any. And then it cries because it doesn't have enough revenue for school maintenance, Walker Rink maintenance and construction, for pension promises its made.

Avatar for Heather C.

Heather C.

Congratulations on their retirements.
New Haven needs to rethink and overhaul their department budgets, their union contracts and retirement benefits and retirement accrual and qualifications, their oversight of all departments, and have a more real world budget with a system of checks and balances to prevent corruption and fraud in all departments.
Time to shake things up!

Avatar for JohnDVelleca

JohnDVelleca

@Noteworthy

In 2008 the city spent nearly 100k on a comprehensive study, which included staffing, that was completed by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The problem, as usual here in New Haven, is that the results of these studies are never adhered to because the politicians and strong community voices always seem to know more than the professional consultants they hire. For example, PERF stated that things like corruption, inefficient operations and excessive overtime expenditures were the direct result of a lack of executive level oversight. The remedy was four assistant chiefs, but everyone who had a voice in the city complained about that for various reasons. Now, over a decade later, the NHPD is back to a Chief and one Assistant Chief. That model is antiquated and tired. I love New Haven, but the city is overrun with "know-it-alls." Especially, politicians who are elected and overnight become experts in everything then when things fall apart have a line of bullshit to cover themselves. I assure you, I'll get responses to this very post from people who have never worked a moment in policing, but will argue with me that the PERF recommendations are wrong.

Avatar for Matterhorn

Matterhorn

@JohnDVelleca,

When PERF came in 2008 what was their recommendation for department staffing?... are the current numbers under their recommendation?

Avatar for Patricia Kane

Patricia Kane

@JohnDVelleca:
Would "executive oversight" include the Mayor, the Board of Police Commissioners and the Chief of the NHPD?
Would other command levels be included?
Do union contracts impede any exercise of authority?
If you could re-design the operation, what would it look like?

Avatar for JohnDVelleca

JohnDVelleca

@Matterhorn

PERF was reluctant to give exact numbers regarding overall sworn staffing (i.e. the size of the department) because the city refused to provide them with a defined service model. I was personally in some of those meetings and I can tell you directly that the city simply made assertions that they wanted a "community policing" service model without being more specific. As we all have come to know, community policing means many different things, on many different levels, to many different people. Therefore, specific recommendations became impossible. At the time, the general opinion was that the NHPD was "bottom-heavy" as opposed to being "top-heavy" as was the common belief. In other words, we had a lot of patrol officers, but the deployment scheme was inefficient so it still felt like there were not enough. I saw evidence of this when I became the Chief in New Hampshire and Manchester was a neighboring jurisdiction. Manchester is nearly identical to New Haven when it comes to population, demographics, crime patterns, crime statistics, and population density. They do the job with around 250 sworn officers and have all of the specialized units we have in New Haven. They simply have a much better deployment scheme.

Avatar for JohnDVelleca

JohnDVelleca

@PatriciaKane

Executive level oversight does not included the BOPC or the Mayors Office. It refers to essentially the Assistant Chiefs and the Chief. It's unfair to task civilian personnel with the fastidious critique of police operations simply because they don't have the required knowledge. There aren't any other command levels that are included. The four Assistant Chief model is the most efficient. The money is not an issue because it balances itself out in the end. The AC position is that of a division head, therefore it will always need to be filled and can't remain vacant. The AC position is salaried and does not qualify for overtime. The Captain or Lieutenant position can be substituted in lieu of the AC, but those positions qualify for overtime. So, in reality, a Captain heading a division who qualifies for overtime will usually earn more than the flat rate salary of an AC. For example, as the AC I can get ten work related phones calls during my off-duty time and not be compensated at all, it was viewed as part of the position. If I were a Captain heading the division and I received the same amount of calls during my off-hours I am owed four hours of overtime pay per call, which would total 40 hours of OT (this was the contract when I left, not sure if it is still the same). So you can see the cost effectiveness of the AC from that perspective alone. More importantly, AC's are not part of the union, while every other rank at the NHPD are part of the same collective bargaining unit. This makes accountability and discipline a nightmare. In short Patty, I think four AC's and a smaller amount of "boots on the street" is the answer. A community policing model that centers around park-and-walk beats, some specialized investigative units and Crisis Teams would works best in my opinion. Less is more. Leave people alone, but be there if you are needed. Honestly, countywide regionalization would work best, but that's a pipedream.

Avatar for Patricia Kane

Patricia Kane

@JohnDVelleca: Thank you for that very clear and very succinct reply.
So who is responsible for the design of the NHPD in the end?
Or is it haphazard?

Avatar for JohnDVelleca

JohnDVelleca

@PatriciaKane

In theory, every police chief should have a vision of where they want to take the department. So ultimately, the chief sets the design with the approval of the Mayor and the BOA. However, the design is largely dependent on current crime trends, service expectations of the community and fiscal ability. Given the current state of relations between the police and the community, we should try and promote more community involvement in that process. Ultimately, the people in the community should dictate how they are policed on a daily basis and we should apply specialization when major incidents occur. Hope that helps. Be well!

Avatar for Patricia Kane

Patricia Kane

@JohnDVelleca: Thank you for all your good information and suggestions.
I, too ,believe in collaboration, but I'm not sure there is currently a forum for exploring what the community/communities want
for policing.
Different neighborhoods have different priorities.
And I don't see any political leadership even suggesting that this conversation take place.
Let's hold on to this idea.
It usually takes something outrageous or a crisis for something to actually happen.

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