New Havener Of The Year

New Haven will always be grateful that Anthony Duff followed his own advice in 2019. Otherwise he might not have made it to 2020, on the cusp of reporting back to work at the police department.

“Train for trouble,” Duff, a police captain, advises younger officers, quoting famed Oakland Raiders coach John Madden. When off duty, carry your firearm, he tells them. And always keep a police radio within reach. In case you encounter trouble.

Because Duff follows his own advice, he had a police radio on the front seat as he drove home from work the night of Aug. 12. And he encountered trouble.

He was stopped at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue and Henry Street in the Dixwell neighborhood. Duff knows Dixwell well: Earlier in his career, he served as the neighborhood’s district manager, the consummate ​“community policing” cop known for mediation rather than jamming people up.

Stopped at the light on Aug. 12, Duff saw something he’d never seen before in 23 and a half years on the force: ​“I saw another man shot, feet away.” Shot dead.

He grabbed his gun. He grabbed his radio. He hustled out of the car. He confronted the shooter. The shooter fired away — at Duff, and hit him. In the arm. In the chest. In the abdomen. In the pelvis. (According to a subsequent state’s attorney investigation, Duff did not fire his weapon.)

“It was a stunning event,” Duff recalled in an interview the other day as he continued the healing process. ​“It threw me off guard.”

But not completely. Duff’s training kicked in. So did the adrenaline. ​“I had my wits about me. I know my body might shut down. I know I might pass out.”

He knew he needed to grab the radio.

He knew what information to convey:

1) A shooting was in progress.
2) Where it took place.
3) The direction in which the shooter was running.

And: ​“Signal 4.” Officer needs assistance.

Within moments, medics arrived, along with Duff’s fellow officers. New Haven’s force all received training in 2019 in the use of tourniquets. That was enabling them to save the lives of shooting victims on scene when it looked like they might not survive an ambulance ride to the hospital. Now a cop himself needed that life-saving help.

“People are asking me what it’s like to have a near-death experience,” Duff said. ​“In the heat of the moment, I’m just thinking: ​‘I need medical attention.’ I knew my body might shut down, I might pass out.”

Four officers — Sgts. Chris Cameron and Shayna Kendall and Officers Ramonel Torres and Joseph Perrotti — got to work. They applied the tourniquet. They kept Capt. Duff alive.

For the next ten days, a team of doctors did the same at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Fellow cops and the community tend to rally around any officers shot while protecting the public in the line of duty. And this was an act of true personal courage.

But there was something different about the reaction to Duff’s brush with death. There may be no more beloved cop in New Haven than Anthony Duff, a calm, smart, gregarious colleague who wins everyone over with his warm smile and open heart. In addition to the grief, the communal outpouring of support served as an antidote for our harsh times. It was a reminder that the police and the public aren’t always at odds. That human beings can cross that divide, can and do bridge that gap. That the world may have too much hate, but it also flows with reservoirs of love.

True Community Cop

Just a few months before he was shot, Duff represented the police department on a panel held at Quinnipiac University to discuss a movie about the mistreatment and death of Sandra Bland in a Texas police lock-up.

Duff sat next to Bland’s sister, on a stage with police abolitionists, during a session of relentless criticism of his department and his profession as irreparably and fundamentally racist. Without defensiveness, he described how New Haven’s police lock-up operated when he ran it. He listened to everyone and spoke with clarity and honesty. He didn’t trash cops. He didn’t trash critics. He described how he does his job, and how he tries to do it right. He described how he dealt with officers who broke the rules.

In the end, Bland’s sister hugged him. What a better world this would be, she said, if all cops were like Anthony Duff.

Anyone who knows Duff would not have been surprised to witness that scene. It has played out over and over, among his fellow officers, in the community, since he joined the force 23 and a half years ago.

Duff, who’s 53, originally came north from Arkansas to study at Yale. He settled in town, married a local sweetheart. He worked at a clothing store, co-hosted an R&B radio show on the side.

When he joined the force, he navigated a steady series of posts, earning accolades and earning trust at each step. Beat walking cop in the Hill. Patrol shift commander. Head of patrol. Detective bureau supervisor. Firearms unit chief. Family services chief. Internal affairs boss. Head of the lock-up.

For one eight-year stretch, from 2002-2010, Duff made a lasting mark on the neighborhood where he would later almost lose his life in the shooting: He served as district manager in Dixwell. During his tenure, crime plummeted and neighbors felt like part of the team. Duff calmly and methodically tackled problems rather than ignoring them, enlisting family members in the process rather than alienating them. Beneath the radar, Duff and his cops used their familiarity with people in Dixwell — and, in this case, crayons as well — to solve small problems that would otherwise turn into big problems. New Haven has aspired to an often unattainable model of true, smart and caring community policing that sees arrest as a last resort. Duff reached it.

When he was shot this year, he was serving as the department’s public information officer, a trusted, low-key face and voice of a department that can often find itself consumed by drama and division.

Other colleagues had to put the word out to the press after Duff was shot on Aug. 12. Word spread fast, starting around 11 p.m. through the early-morning hours. New Haven started praying.

First-Ever Sick Day

And Duff started healing. One step at a time.

In doing so, he continued to follow his own advice. Namely, to work hard to get and stay healthy.

This was a new experience for Duff. He’d never been hospitalized before. In fact, he had never before even called in sick — not when he worked in Fred’s Discount Store as a teenager in Forest City, Arkansas, not when he worked in Barry Cobden’s Campus Customs store on Broadway after coming to New Haven to study at Yale, not since joining the police force in 1996.

Now Duff had no choice but to stay out of work.

At first, he couldn’t even leave his hospital bed. He was connected to tubes. Teams of trauma and thoracic surgeons ​“saved my life.”

From the start, he worked with them to avoid getting too comfortable on morphine or oxycontin. He’d always counseled avoiding strong pain medication, because of how fast you can get hooked. Within days, his doctors helped him start weaning off ​“the strong stuff.”

Duff had a reputation to live up to: He was known as a ​“health” guy in the department. He started a wellness center on the second floor. It brought in salads and healthful snacks for cops to eat during the day. It brought in trainers for ​“Wellness Wednesday” classes on how to stay fit, how to fight off diabetes. It spread to include not just cops, but visitors from other workplaces like Yale New Haven Hospital. It’s still going strong.

After ten days, on Aug. 22, hundreds of officers from throughout the state stood in formation outside Yale New Haven’s York Street entrance to salute Duff as his wife escorted him out of the hospital and into a car headed home.

Duff managed to make it a day later to the funeral of the man he saw shot that night, Troy Clark. Duff was having trouble walking. But he was determined to pay his respects, to show that all lives matter in our community. He and Chief Otoniel Reyes and Mayor Toni Harp stood outside Howard K. Hill Funeral Home to welcome all the mourners, then joined them inside for the service.

Duff still had far to go: More surgery. Physical therapy. Regular appointments with the doctors.

It was challenging — not just pushing forward, but figuring out what to do all day. He enjoys going to work. Fall is prime fishing season; this fall his 90-horsepower, 16-foot pleasure boat would remain docked while its skipper remained on land. For this season. Just this season.

“Still Processing It”

On Dec. 11, hundreds of his fellow officers responded to a second ​“Signal 4” call for Duff. This time it was a ​“Signal 4” party held at the Van Dome nightclub on Hamilton Street. 

Officers designed, ordered and sold over 400 Duff-themed T‑shirts. Business owners donated raffle gifts. And thousands of dollars were raised, along with spirits, to help with Duff’s healing.

Duff and his wife Mia entered the club to smiles and a phalanx of hugs. He was standing. And walking. And smiling. The event ​“brought the police department together,” Assistant Chief Renee Dominguez noted as she helped assemble the Waxology and Starbucks coffee packages and HDTV screen on the crowded raffle-prize table, to ​“rally around him and make him feel the love that he deserves.”

The next day, cops were still wearing those T‑shirts inside 1 Union Ave. when Duff stopped by. He popped in to the second floor past the wellness center. He stopped by the credit union; he chairs the board, and encourages officers to save some of their money as one way to ​“train for trouble.”

Seated in the credit union office, Duff reflected on his road to recovery. He couldn’t speak much about the details of the incident itself, because the state’s attorney’s office is still investigating it. Instead, he looked as much forward as back. Duff seemed like his old self: Upbeat, he left no doubt that he has come far and has no intention of stopping.

“It was four months ago today. I’m still processing it,” he said.

He dropped 30 pounds — and has been working at keeping the weight off.

“You really have to gradually and slowly work your way back,” he said. He does house chores in the morning. ​“This is the most time I’ve had to myself without school or work since I was a pre-teen,” he observed. He has ​“reorganized” the basement, the garage, cleared out junk. He practices walking up and down the stairs. He can now do that ​“without feeling winded. You see the progression. You notice the healing.” He goes to physical therapy appointments. His staples have been removed. (A private man by nature, he declines to discuss his injuries in detail.)

He has stopped limping. That was noticeable as he made the rounds at 1 Union Ave.

Duff is eligible to retire. But ​“I’m in no hurry to retire,” he said. ​“I enjoy the work.” If the doctors say OK, he sees himself back in the job as soon as February. If not sooner.

Faces lit up at each stop Duff made on his rounds that day at 1 Union.

“When are you coming back?” asked one sergeant.

“I’ll be back,” Duff assured her.

Take that to the bank.

Previous New Haveners of the Year:
• 2018: Kim Harris & Amy Marx
• 2017: New Haveners Under 30: Caroline Smith, Coral Ortiz, Justin Farmer, Jesus Morales Sanchez, Margaret Lee, Sarah Ganong, Jacob Spell, Steve Winter, Eliannie Sola, Leiyanie Lee Osorio
• 2016: Corey Menafee
• 2015: Jim Turcio
• 2014: Rev. Eldren Morrison
• 2013: Mnikesa Whitaker
• 2012: Diane Polan, Jennifer Gondola, Jillian Knox, Holly Wasilewski
• 2011: Stacy Spell
• 2010: Martha Green, Paul Kenney, Michael Smart, Rob Smuts, Luis Rosa Sr.
• 2009: Rafael Ramos
• 2006: Shafiq Abdussabur