Thomas Breen photo
Newly minted Detectives Chris Stroscio and James Paxton.
The two new detectives with the assistant chiefs and chief.
Two six-year police veterans rose the ranks from officer to detective during the first promotion ceremony to take place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current nationwide uprisings against police brutality.
That ceremony took place Thursday afternoon in the third-floor atrium of New Haven Police Department headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
With surgical masks wrapped around their faces and chairs placed six feet apart before them, Chris Stroscio and James Paxton were both sworn in as detectives.
They both joined the force in 2014.
NHPD higher-ups watch the promotion ceremony.
Stroscio, 39, graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2009, and started his career walking the beat in Westville/West Hills’s District 2. Asst. Chief Karl Jacobson said Stroscio has worked in the Narcotics Enforcement Unit, and has received complete traffic stops training and crisis intervention training.
Paxton, 29, graduated from Plymouth State University in 2013, and has spent most of his career walking the beat and on patrol in Beaver Hills’s District 10. Paxton has also served in the Special Victims Unit, is patrol rifle certified, and has received crisis intervention training.
Both officers attended a week-long detective training program at the University of New Haven in June 2018.
“Detectives have the enormous responsibility of carrying forth an investigation to its entirety,” said Police Chief Otoniel Reyes (pictured). They are charged with providing justice for people who have been victimized.”
“Compassionate, Caring, And Collaborative”
“This is a very, very difficult time to be a police officer, to be a part of any police force in the United States,” noted Mayor Justin Elicker (pictured).
“I would also say that it’s probably the most important time for you to be a police officer, and a police officer with integrity, an officer who cares deeply about what you all pledged to do, which is to serve the community, to ensure the safety of the community, and to protect.”
The mayor didn’t explicitly mention the fact that the Board of Police Commissioners had fired an officer earlier this same week after an investigation found he had used excessive force during an arrest. And he didn’t detail the waves of protests against police brutality and in support of fundamentally rethinking the role of the police that have taken place locally and nationally since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. But that context, as well as that of the Covid-19 public health crisis, hung unspoken in the room.
Elicker said he’s proud to stand with the chief to acknowledge the hard work the officers have put in over the past six years.
“I want to make clear that I stand with the chief in supporting the work that you do when it is done in a way that is compassionate, caring, and collaborative,” the mayor said.
He then asked each officer to raise his right hand and take the oath of becoming a detective.
Each officer repeated:
I solemnly swear
That I will faithfully and impartially
Perform the duties of detective
To the best of my ability
And according to law
And that I will at all times
Strive to use the power entrusted to me
As such officer
For the interest of the city
So help me God.
Detective Stroscio greets Mayor Elicker.
Elicker gave each newly minted detective an elbow bump of congratulations.
When asked what he makes of the current nationwide debate about policing, Paxton said, “It’s a very complicated topic. I don’t have the answers at this time.”
Stroscio delved a bit deeper when asked the same question. “I think having a conversation is a great way to go about changing things,” he said. He said police and community members getting together to talk about what role police officers can and should play in promoting public safety can only lead to good things.
We need a mayor who won't let such important things hang "unspoken in the room", as Tom so perfectly put it. Mayor Elicker needs to have the backbone to walk into NHPD headquarters and talk about reform, talk about accountability, talk about racism and white supremacy, talk about cutting the police budget. The moment for that kind of leadership is here. Mayor Elicker needs to lead in this moment, not equivocate every chance he gets. Too much work has been done by too many organizers, scholars, family members, etc. to upend racism in the criminal justice system for the mayor to not act decisively right now. We need a counterbalance to the PD, and our mayor is not providing that. He has not indicated that he is willing to stand up to the PD in any meaningful way. It looks like the movement will need to force him to get up-to-speed.