Police Commission OKs Colon As Asst. Chief

Lt. Manmeet Colon ascended to the role of assistant police chief after city commissioners praised her career in the department, her skills as a police officer and leader, and her status as a multilingual Asian American woman now in the local force’s highest ranks. 

The Board of Police Commissioners unanimously approved Colon’s appointment as assistant chief Tuesday night during the group’s latest monthly meeting, which was held online via Zoom. The vote took place one day after the Independent first reported that Police Chief Karl Jacobson had tapped Colon to be his third assistant chief.

New Haven is doing somewhat above the average of women officers in the police ranks with about 17 percent today compared to 11 or 12 nationally, according to Jacobson.

However by the measure of women and minority officers in supervisory and leadership staff, the Elm City is at 43 percent, up from 26 percent when Chief Jacobson took the helm of the NHPD seven months ago.

“These are the best people for positions and they just happen to be female and minority,” he said.

That good news was underscored at Tuesday night’s police commission meeting, where Chief Jacobson recommended Lt. Colon to be his third assistant chief. After a round of warm encomiums from commissioners and colleagues, Colon was approved by a unanimous vote.

Colon rounds out Jacobson’s leadership team, joining Assistant Chiefs Bertram Ettienne and David Zannelli, and will step in to helm the patrol division as Zannelli heads off for two months of training at the national FBI academy.

In a brief review of her career for the commissioners — which includes having been district manager in Westville/West Hills, East Rock, and, as she put it, her ​“beloved Dixwell” — Colon said on Tuesday that her current job helming the Internal Affairs Division has truly prepared her to step into the new position.

“I take pride having been given such a complex task in holding members [of the department] accountable. I believe in the Chief’s goals of diversifying the ranks and providing officers the tools they need.” Read more about Colon’s career in the New Haven Police Department here.

Police Commissioner Michael Lawlor said he took special pride in the appointment of Colon, a native of Mumbai, India, as she was his student at the University of New Haven before she graduated from the city’s police academy in 2008.

“How proud we are with just the idea that we have so many people on the force with different cultural backgrounds in it. In Lt. Colon’s case, a native Punjabi speaker. It’s so important we have people to whom our citizens can relate. And I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone as humble. She’ll be a great member of the team.”

“I am never not impressed by her demeanor and her deep curiosity,” said fellow Commissioner Tracey Meares, who has worked with Colon on police policies. ​“She is one of the most impressive police leaders I have ever met. An amazing woman, a mom, and I’m just thrilled for New Haven to see a person like her as a city leader.”

Amid the congratulations, however, Meares offered Chief Jacobson a cautionary note. 

“I appreciate the ways and reasons you do women and minorities [together] in your chart. But let’s look sanguinely at the number of female officers. Our numbers reflect national averages, which is 12 percent and our numbers hover between 11 and ​‘16.” (Jacobson interjected that currently it’s 17 percent.)

“And that’s pretty good,” Meares continued. ​“But when we conflate women and minorities, it might get us a little complacent about the number of women, and we shouldn’t [be]. I’d ask you to look at the 30 by 30 organization out of New York. As to police [female] leadership we’re doing better there, but we should keep our mind on the ball.”

“This is a great day for the City of New Haven,” said Police Commission Chair Evelise Ribeiro, ​“and also for the Indian community and women of color in the city and state; another glass ceiling has been broken.”

However, after praising the generally positive female numbers, Ribeiro also cautioned, ​“Most important is we have good officers. We don’t want just numbers, but people of good caliber to fill those numbers.”

During a separate interview on WNHH’s ​“Dateline New Haven” earlier on Tuesday, Lawlor said he has watched Colon’s ascent in policing since she graduated from University of New Haven, where he taught a criminal-justice course she took.

“She’s always been an all star in my book,” Lawlor said during the radio interview. ​“She has an extraordinary leadership capacity. She is humble, and she’s very highly respected by her colleagues.”

He said Colon has done an ​“extraordinary” job overseeing internal affairs, and succeeded in a wide variety of jobs within the department, from patrol officer to detective to district manager. Her fluency in Punjabi matters, too, part of the department’s increasing number of officers able to converse with New Haveners from other countries.