Chief Reyes’ Appointment Advances

Don’t transfer beloved district managers. Reinvigorate block watches. More walking beats. Split East Shore into two distinct police districts. Recruit New Haveners year-round to refill ranks.

Interim Police Chief Otoniel Reyes seconded all those suggestions from lawmakers as they moved him along the path to becoming New Haven’s permanent top cop.

That friendly peppering occurred during a hearing at City Hall Monday night of the Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee. The committee took a step to stepped up formal final approval of Reyes becoming the official chief by effectively discharging his nomination to be taken up and voted on Sept. 3 by the full Board of Alders.

Forty members of the public, including his assistant chiefs and members of the Board of Police Commissioners, came out to support Reyes, who would have two and a half years left in the current chief’s term if approved. Reyes has technically served as acting chief since Anthony Campbell’s retirement in March; under a charter revision approved by voters in 2013, the Board of Alders must vote to approve the appointment of the police chief.

After the alders’ questioning Monday night, Fire Chief John Alston, Jr., Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins, Police Commissioners Anthony Dawson and Evelise Ribeiro, Newhallville Community Management Team Chair Kim Harris, and Reyes’ lifelong friend Rev. Abraham Hernandez voiced their enthusiastic support.

Only one member of the public, Chris Garaffa, Connecticut coordinator of the watchdog Answer coalition, expressed reservations about Reyes. Garaffa questioned Reyes’ remarks that the NHPD needs to be sufficiently prepared and armed to deal with a potential mass shooting event, a growing police concern nationwide.

Reyes returned to the microphone and, taking a seat by him, told Garaffa that as chief he has no intention of purchasing federal military equipment for the department.

“My focus is also that we represent everyone, including peoples’ constitutional rights” to criticize police, Reyes added. Garaffa said he had misunderstood.

Splitting East Shore, Redefining ​“Community Policing”

“Would you be for splitting east Shore into two districts as promised?” Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola asked Reyes. The department has for years planned to divide Bishop Woods/Quinnipic Meandows/ Fair Haven Heights from Annex and Morris Cove into separate districts.

“There’s no question East Shore needs to be split,” replied Reyes. ​“Geographically it’s the largest, also over 12 percent of our calls. But I want to analyze it. Without giving you a firm commitment of date, I can give you my firm commitment to proceed.”

The shrinking of walking beats, among a staffing shortage, also arose during questioning.

“I think there’s no sense of community policing without walking beats,” said Fair Haven Heights Alder Rose Santana.

I walked for the first two years of my career. I’m bought into the concept of walking beats. But we’re dealing with staffing shortages,” Reyes responded. ​“True, the image of community policing is the walking beat. So the challenge is how do you keep true. Maybe it’s more bike patrols when we have limited resources. We have to redefine what community policing is about.”

“What are you going to do to address the increasing property crime?” asked Dwight Alder Evette Hamilton.

“It’s in the forefront for us,” replied Reyes. He cited the decline of violent crime to the lowest rates in 50 years. ​“We live in a safer city, so we have an opportunity to focus on property crime. Even in that category we are down 22 percent, but when stuff happens … it’s critical we engage with the community. Like the four purse snatchings [recently in Westville], we didn’t find out until the last one. It’s about communication. It’s critical we engage with the community. That’s why you’ll see me at more management team meetings.”

Top Priorities

Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes, a retired police captain, asked Reyes for his ​“top three things to overcome.”

Reyes cited, first, the declining image of the police, as a problem nationwide.

“It’s very difficult to impact that, but one of the most important things I can do is constantly remind the officers of their commitment to the community,” he said.

Reyes also said, ​“We need to push the narrative of what we’re doing out there. The transparency of the department is critical to its legitimacy. We need to praise when it goes well, so that when it doesn’t,” a police can tap into an earned reservoir of good will.

Thirdly, Reyes called attention to being prepared for mass shootings incidents.

“There have been 255 instances of active shooter situations” in the country so far this year, he noted. ​“We need to give our officers what they need. We know the community doesn’t want to be militarized, and we need to make our officers understand how people think.” He called it was a question of balance.

Reyes was roundly praised for being a homegrown officer, extensively trained, with a genuine commitment to the department and the people of New Haven.

“As none of us are perfect,” said Downtown/Yale Alder Hacibey Catalbasoglu, ​“what’s the one thing you can improve on?”

“I think I look at the big picture, and should work harder not to miss details,” Reyes responded. He said he missed important details in his early appointments of district managers. ​“I didn’t look at the details,” appointing some managers, for example, according to rank, as to opposed to focusing on lower-ranked officer already known.

Reyes then returned to the Big Picture. ​“We tried to arrest our way out of juvenile crime,” but that didn’t work, he said.

“In the same way, homelessness and the opioid crisis are not police issues. We need to come up with options for young folks so that they come in less contact with policing. We need to start speaking up and saying we can’t police our way out of many of those issues. We want to be partners.”

Reyes said that stabilizing the department is a key focus of his leadership, which is why he chose respected longtime cops Renee Dominguez and Karl Jacobson as associated chiefs. He said a hoped-for upcoming approval by the Board of Alders of a new police contract will help keep young officers on the force and keep them healthy — in a profession with high rates of suicide, heart attack, and divorce.

In light of that, Hill Alder Dolores Colon asked Reyes: ​“How are you handling the care, the mental health of your offices?”

Reyes replied that has been one of his top priorities. He has taken the initiative to negotiate about it with the union, among other parties. ​“Healthy communities need healthy officers,” he said. He praised a peer-support program already well developed in the NHPD. 

“By Sept. 1 we will start mandatory wellness checks” for officers, he added. ​“Because we know often officers won’t take the first step to seek help. We can never do enough to make it more acceptable for our officers to get in front of a professional to remind them to take care of themselves.”

“No one has appointed more chiefs, and assistant chiefs that we have,” said Anthony Dawson, the chair of the Board of Police Commissioners, one of the evening’s final speakers. ​“It’s a fine department, but we need to fine-tune it more. Chief Reyes clearly understands that we have to do something different, that we have our backs against the wall. He and his assistant chiefs understand the mission to move forward.”

Reyes, in closing, told the alders that he could have moved to retire as soon as next June, but, as a native son of New Haven and the Hill, he could not pass up on the opportunity to serve as chief.

If the alders confirm Reyes’ appoint, his term would run through until January 2022.