Sam Gurwitt Photo
Ray Hassett with Walter Morton.
In response to statistics showing disparities in discipline between students of different races in Hamden’s schools, the district is considering bringing in an expert to train staff in de-escalation techniques.
The expert, retired New Haven Police Lieut. Ray Hassett, presented his course to the Hamden Board of Education’s (BOE) Personnel Committee last week. Since retiring from the department in 2012, Hassett has led de-escalation trainingsaround the world for law enforcement, schools, businesses, government agencies, and other groups that involve interacting with people in situations that could potentially become inflamed.
BOE Member Walter Morton arranged for Hassett to present to the personnel committee. In January, Morton said, he received an email from Hamden cop Jeremy Brewer suggesting that Hamden’s BOE staff do the training. Brewer had just watched Morton’s interview on the Independent’s radio station WNHH, in which Morton discussed the racial diversity of Hamden’s schools and the district’s efforts to better serve its diverse student population.
Morton said he was game, so he met with Hassett, and scheduled last Tuesday’s presentation.
(Read more about Hassett’s training here and here).
Personnel Committee Members Melinda Saller and Walter Morton.
Hassett gave the Personnel Committee a taste of the training, which he offers through the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement (CABLE).
“This training is going to teach you to slow things down a little bit,” he said near the beginning. “We’re concentrating on the emotion that drives the behavior. People in their worst moments cannot think.”
The training, he said, teaches people to “read behavior to connect before it goes into crisis.”
Hassett’s training is interactive. In the actual class, which takes about four hours, he said he has people on their feet, simulating experiences. His presentation, too, was interactive — he did not spare even the reporters in the room from cold-called questions.
He showed videos to illustrate how people can react well, or poorly, to situations that need to be de-escalated. One showed a safari guide stopping an agitated elephant from trampling a group. Another showed an American Airlines representative who did not know how to deal with an enraged passenger after her flight to a cruise in Florida was cancelled.
Before joining the New Haven PD, Hassett was an actor. He played a rebel officer in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back as well as an officer in Superman.
Now he travels the world teaching the techniques he learned when he was the top cop in charge of policing in New Haven’s Dwight neighborhood.
He said that social media has ushered in a cultural shift that often turns situations volatile faster than they would have before.
“’My kid had a bad lunch’ — that can explode nowadays,” he said.
According to Hassett’s presentation, 55 percent of how we communicate emotion is non-verbal; 38 percent is para-verbal (tone), and only 7 percent is verbal. Connecting with the person and understanding their emotional state, he said, are key.
“These connections, however minimal you think they are, they can be lifesaving,” he said.
Hassett trains people to use a 5 – 3‑3 formula: five seconds to connect, three minutes to self-correct, and three minutes to leave them better than they were before the encounter.
Hassett’s training program proposal must come before the full BOE next. Morton said he hopes to implement it by the beginning of the next school year.
“Personally, I’m a fan. I think this is something that would service our district will,” he said.
Teachers at Hamden MS need extensive training in how to see students, especially Students of Color, as human. They have rejected many ideas and trainings over the last few years.
Morton seems like he has a clear sense of things from previous articles, but this looks questionable. Sam Gurwitt please let us know what else the BOE is considering regarding critical training on racist and disproportional discipline.
Is this the only idea they are working with? If so, the other people with ideas need to get in the room. I like the idea of adults taking time to self-correct, but who is going to teach them how to examine their socialization? To push against what they have been taught about young people, and themselves?
I am curious if this former officer can train an overwhelmingly white and burned out staff how to not criminalize young Black and Brown students. In a district where families have reported extensive abuse at the hands of officers assigned to schools. Is that a Blue Lives Matter pin? Does he believe that Black Lives Matter and can he communicate that to teachers?