Staff photos
Acting Chief Dominguez, Sgt. Louis DeCrescenzo: Mutual support.
A police supervisor summoned the rank and file to show up en masse at City Hall Monday night to convince the Board of Alders to make Renee Dominguez the city’s permanent police chief.
At least for two months.
The summons, sent through a blast email on a government account, was among the flurry of last-minute lobbying leading up to a vote scheduled at Monday’s alders meeting.
The vote is on whether to confirm Mayor Justin Elicker’s nomination of Dominguez to officially fill out the last two months of the current police chief’s term. Dominguez has been serving as acting chief, and before that interim chief, since March.
If confirmed, Dominguez will return to the board for another confirmation vote in early 2022 to serve a full four-year term.
The behind-the-scenes lobbying has occurred in the past week as vote-counters said they weren’t sure how the alders will vote, amid concerns about the direction of the police department, the disappearance of nonwhite cops from the top ranks for the first time since 1993, and the failure to solve over two-thirds of the city’s homicides.
Dominguez sought to allay some of those concerns this past Thursday night when she met with alder leadership: She committed to hiring at least one assistant chief of color, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. Dominguez had previously stated that she would not make any commitments about the assistant chief picks. Then last week the Rev. Boise Kimber publicly called on her to do so. (Dominguez did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)
The department’s rank and file are now being called on to make a show of force at Monday night’s meeting to help sway the vote.
The call came in a Friday email written by Sgt. Louis DeCrescenzo.
Using his government account, DeCrescenzo mailed his message to Sgt. David Stratton, who then forwarded it to 315 department members, from the rank of captain on down, at 2:30 p.m.
The subject line was “Solidarity.”
“On Dec. 6, 2021 at 1900 hours, Chief Dominguez will have a meeting at City Hall in the Board of Alders Chambers,” he wrote.
“Collectively we, the men and women have seen many Chiefs come and go over the years. It’s time we show a sign of solidarity and support Chief Dominguez during her vote as the new Chief of Police Department.
“If there has ever been a Chief that has held their values through rank and file, then executed them all the same as they held office, it has been Chief Dominguez.
“I hope everyone available will attend this meeting to come together and show our support through numbers.”
NHPD General Order 4.07.04 addresses “Prohibited Use of E‑mail.”
“E‑mail messages addressed to all city employees are only to be used for city business-related items that are of particular interest to all users and must be approved by the Chief of Police or Division Commander,” it reads in part. “Personal advertisements are not acceptable.”
DeCrescenzo did not respond to an email seeking comment for this article.
Sgt. Stratton, who is assigned as the detail room sergeant at 1 Union Ave., did respond.
“I receive frequent requests to send emails to the department,” he stated. “I was asked to forward this message as I have the most current email list for the department. I was not ordered to do so, nor do I believe it was a violation of the general order.”
Mutual Support
As acting chief, Dominguez has also shown her support for DeCrescenzo.
DeCrecenzo is the patrol shift commander for C Squad, meaning he’s in charge of citywide police operations overnight.
He was in that role in the early morning hours of May 6 when police failed to arrest a firefighter who was drunk and had broken into his ex-girlfriend’s home. The firefighter shot himself to death later that night.
Dominguez has recommended a six-month suspension for the immediate supervisor in that case.
The supervisor, Sgt. Jasmine Sanders, consulted DeCrescenzo (who was her supervisor) and had an eight-minute conversation with him about how to respond to the call. The two of them differ about what was said during that conversation. Dominguez accepted DeCrescenzo’s version and did not recommend any discipline for him in that case. That caused the Board of Police Commissioners to question her suspension recommendation and delay acting on it until they can gather more information about how she has meted out discipline this year. (Read more about that here.)
DeCrescenzo now figures in a second controversial case in which Dominguez will be faced with a possible disciplinary action. He was the supervisor in charge on Nov. 16 when an officer, by that officer’s own admission, falsely arrested a woman who had a protective order guarding her. The officer had mistakenly believed the order was against the woman, not protecting her. She spent overnight in the lock-up. After discovering his mistake, the officer said that DeCrescenzo instructed him to instead arrest the woman’s “boyfriend” against whom the order was issued, blaming him, not the officer, for the confusion. (Read more about that here.)
Dominguez has ordered an internal affairs investigation into the matter. She has declined any comment on it, and has not issued an apology or expression of regret for the woman having spent the night in lock-up.
Thanks Sarge for your service. This is a hit piece. It’s easy to watch from the sidelines.