Thomas Breen photo
City police officers lined up in August 2019.
Trustworthy. Emotionally Mature. Courageous. A good communicator. And, ideally, from the ranks of the city’s own police department.
A dozen members of the public singled out those characteristics during the first public meeting about what New Haveners would like to see in the city’s next police chief.
That Zoom-assisted virtual meeting took place last week. It was hosted by Mayor Justin Elicker and city Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle, and moderated by Varick Memorial AME Zion Church Rev. Kelcy Steele.
The hour-and-a-half-long meeting was the first of two that the mayor’s office has scheduled as part of a nationwide search for a successor to Acting Police Chief Renee Dominguez. After being turned down by the Board of Alders in December, Dominguez has announced her plans to retire once the city finds her replacement.
The Elicker Administration hired a California-based consultant to help out with the police chief search, has published a community survey allowing New Haveners to write in with their thoughts on the matter through April 28, and will be hosting another virtual town hall on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. (All the while, Dominguez’s continuing to serve as “acting” police chief for longer than six month has sparked a city charter-parsing lawsuit that is making its way through state court.)
CAO Rush-Kittle presents the charter-mandated police chief qualifications at Tuesday's town hall.
At Tuesday’s virtual town hall, roughly a dozen New Haveners wrote in and spoke up in response to a series of prompts put forward by Elicker, Rush-Kittle, and Steele. Those included:
• As a New Haven resident, what qualities are you looking for in the next police chief?
• Where do you see New Haven going in policing in the next era?
• And, from your past experiences, can you describe what type of chief has been successful — or unsuccessful — in New Haven?
Time and again, those who participated called for the Elicker Administration to look within the city’s own police department for its next top cop.
New Haven needs a chief who is “trustworthy, connected to the community, and who can connect to young people,” said city youth services staffer Ronnie Huggins. Someone who is “fair, open, optimistic.”
And, he added, “looking back at our history of police chiefs, someone ideally from our current police department. … We do have qualified people within our department, and local.”
Curtis Charles agreed. He said the next chief needs to be able to manage the many “cliques in the ranks of the officers” of the current police department. “Having someone local gives a better guidance for that.”
“For crime prevention and community connection,” Charles continued, “I feel like a local person has more knowledge” that may trump a higher educational background of an out-of-town future chief.
“We have someone in our department that’s capable of running our city,” said Dougie Bethea. “We have to look for real leadership in our city. We have that person in our department. We just have to find it. We don’t have to look far.”
“We need a chief that’s connected to the inner-city people of New Haven,” Bethea added. “I think we can get a chief” from inside of the current department. “We don’t have to go out of town to find real leadership.”
Some of those who attended Tuesday night urged the mayor to give Dominguez another shot at becoming permanent police chief. (The charter gives the mayor authority to appoint and nominate a police chief, and the alders authority to accept or reject that nomination.)
Thomas Breen file photo
Ed Joyner.
Ed Joyner, a Board of Education member and retired former educator who has lived in the city for five decades, said New Haven’s next chief should have a strong record of “high character,” “courage,” “relational skills,” the ability to “build trust [among] young people in the community,” and the ability to “walk the delicate balance of enforcing the law and helping citizens of this city recognize” that police are there to serve them.
He complimented former chiefs Mel Wearing and Ben DiLieto as embodying those characteristics.
And he called on the mayor to “give the current chief [Dominguez] an opportunity to apply. She has all of the qualities” mentioned above.
“Our current chief should put her name back in,” agreed Magaly Cajigas, “and let us give her a shot at continuing the work she is doing currently.”
Cajigas also said that the next police chief must be “someone that is familiar with community policing.” She said that the next chief should encourage police officers to volunteer with local nonprofits like the Boys and Girls Club and LEAP in order to build a bridge between law enforcement and local youth. “Just walking the beat is not enough,” she said.
What has made for successful past chiefs?
They have had “high character and high visibility,” Joyner said.
“They were almost everywhere. They were in the supermarket. They were in the church. They were in the various social organizations that we had. They also had people right beneath them that were the same way.”
What about unsuccessful past chiefs?
“They were corrupt,” Joyner said. “They were poor communicators.” They had “very low visibility” in the community. They were “limited tacticians.” And they were “emotionally immature.”
BLM > Thin Blue Line
One of the questions asked by Elicker to the virtual meeting attendees was: “Do you expect the police chief to be stronger in the community or in the police department?”
That is, the mayor elaborated, how exactly should the next police chief balance his or her time and energy? By prioritizing being out in the community and dedicated to community relations, or managing the work and need and desires of city police officers?
“I think it’s a false dichotomy,” said Angel Fernandez. “It’s got to be both. The next police chief must understand that they’re a leader for all of us.”
Fernandez said that every police department in the country right now faces a certain tension. That is: “Are you going to choose between Black Lives Matter and the Thin Blue Line?”
“To me,” he said, “the answer is Black Lives Matter.”
He said that Black Lives Matter “very, very much strikes to the core of what it means to have a police department, to be a police officer, and to be the chief of those police officers. They are us.” They are civilians who have a badge, he said, and who are specially trained to ensure community safety.
“There never should have been an attitude of a Thin Blue Line,” he continued. “A Thin Blue Line implies, it more than implies, that it’s ‘us against everyone else.’
“When we do this right, when all of us are engaged with policing, the average police officer — regardless of their own ethnicity — will not feel like they’re alone out there, that they’re a part of a Thin Blue Line.”
That, he said, “will be a huge strong force for public safety that goes far beyond just the police department.”
He said that a successful police chief, and local government, must look to “all of the things that promote a danger to public safety, and find and use all tools to address those,” including law enforcement and “social programs.”
The next police chief, he concluded, “should understand that he or she is a leader for all of that. You just can’t split this stuff.”
Click here and enter the password j0K^1JDO to watch the full video recording of Tuesday’s town hall.
When this process initially began with the mayor's appointment of acting chief Renee Dominguez, I asked a policeman what the sentiment of the members of the Department regarding Dominguez. The response: there was broad support in the Department for her to become chief.
Dominguez, because of her decades of service in New Haven, had strong support across the city.
The aldermen failed to represent the sentiment of the people and did not even have the courage to go on record when they cast their votes to reject the mayor's appointee.
Oddly, they slyly repremanded Dominguez and opened the door for her to come back with a plan to address their concerns, but rumblings of racism and sexism, and doubts generated to question Dominguez commitment to New Haven because she dared do what others would have done: apply for two different jobs simultaneously, probably pushed her to withdraw her name from consideration for the job, and announce her retirement.
Several people have now said that they would like Chief Dominguez to be considered for the position. She meets the criteria many residents have stated they want in a chief: someone from within the ranks who is experienced, respected by the community and the officers, one who knows this city!
The vocal opposition of a few members of the community who style themselves as community leaders should not overpower the voice of the people, neither should the Board of Aldermen who should represent the will of the people.
There is a groundswell of support for Chief Dominguez and THAT must be recognized and acknowledged.
She would be far better than any outside candidate.