Bruce Oren Photo
Cops Monday evening at the scene of Boulevard shooting: Would a more diverse force help?
City of New Haven
Amid a disappearance of cops of color from the top ranks, pressure is building on police brass to start promoting Black and Hispanic officers into at least mid-level slots.
That pressure has coincided in recent months with a series of departures from the department of a series of top cops of color, and as the city wrestles with a spike in crime.
On Tuesday those concerns came to public view with the airing of brewing concerns about an upcoming round of hiring new lieutenants, and allegations from some officers of color that they didn’t get a fair shot in the testing process. The results of the exam won’t be certified or made public until a June 23 Civil Service Commission meeting. Based on the raw scores released to individual applicants, two have appealed their results, and Black applicants have charged that white applicants received favoritism, a charge rejected by officials.
That discussion emerges amid a trend away from diversity in the upper ranks.
A year after protest movements nationwide called for a reexamination of racing and policing, New Haven has reached a milestone: All of its top cops are now white, for the first time since 1993, when Melvin Wearing became assistant chief.
New Haven got to that point fast in 2021.
That change began in January when Otoniel Reyes, who is Latino and grew up in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood, announced his retirement as police chief.
Mayor Justin Elicker appointed Renee Dominguez, who is white and grew up in East Haven, to replace him. (Dominguez is her married name.)
Then Herb Sharp, who is Black, retired as assistant chief. That left the department with no cops of color in either the chief’s or an assistant chief position for the first time since Mel Wearing became assistant chief.
Paul Bass Photo
Mayor Justin Elicker greets Anthony Duff, the NHPD’s final African-American captain or assistant chief or district manager, as Duff leaves HQ on his last day April 19 to a parade of salutes and cheers from colleagues. Duff retired after interviewing with Elicker for the chief’s position.
Anthony Duff, a hero of the period in which New Haven replaced military-style policing with community policing, retired as well. That left the department with no captains of color. Duff had interviewed with Mayor Elicker for the chief’s job before retiring.
Meanwhile, none of the 10 policing sectors, set up during the community policing experts to connect cops with neighborhoods, has a Black district manager. (One of the district managers, Manmeet Colon, is Indian-American; another, Elliott Rosa, is Hispanic.) Of 45 detectives sent to investigate major crimes, two are Black. (The major crimes supervisor, Sgt. Bertram Ettienne, is Black.)
The city Tuesday released the chart at the top of this story, which shows that the department has one Hispanic lieutenant, and no Black cops above the rank of sergeant.
The city recently certified results of a promotional list for captain. There are three open positions; the top three scorers were white, and Colon finished fourth.
Paul Bass Photo
Rev. Steven Cousin at Tuesday’s press conference outside police HQ.
That context was invoked by a group of ministers from the New Haven Clergy Association in a press conference they held Tuesday afternoon outside police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
The ministers had just completed a sit-down with Chief Dominguez and Asst. Chief Karl Jacobson airing their concerns about diversity in the ranks. They specifically conveyed complaints that have been circulating among cops of color about the results of the lieutenant promotional exam.
Twenty-one cops took the test: 14 of them white, five Black, two Latino. Chief Dominguez will have nine slots to fill.
The test has a written portion and an oral portion. Test-takers have received their “raw” scores individually. Comparing notes, they concluded that they were graded lower on the oral portion, and they charged that white test-takers were directed to a website of the testing company to glean “inside” information that gave them an advantage.
The ministers urged Dominguez to promote some cops of color among the nine — even if that means invoking the “rule of three” to choose people ranked 10th or 11th, say, on the list.
They also asked her to look into the allegations of favoritism.
At the press conference, ministers linked the spike in violent crime and unsolved cases to a disconnect between a largely white and often suburban police force with New Haveners of color.
The Rev. Steven Cousin (who serves as president of the city’s fire commission) said the diversity challenge stems from the top ranks. It affects the morale of rank-and-file cops of color who sense a lack of opportunity to advance within the department, he argued.
“It stems from the top,” he argued.
“We want to make sure everybody feels the process was fair and equitable,” Cousin said. “Was this information made available to everybody or just to some?”
Officers told clergy they did not feel comfortable raising their complaints in-house, Cousin said. “We feel it has to be up to us to make sure their voices are heard so they can be protected in this process.”
Reached after the press conference, Dominguez said she at this point does not “know where anybody placed on the test.”
She said all officers were aware of the identity of the company conducting the oral portion of the exam, Morris & McDaniel. All officers received a packet of information with that and other information about the process, she said.
A Google search of the firm showed this prep advice site as the second hit.
Paul Bass Photo
Elicker unveils dirt-bike crackdown on April 15 with, from right, Chief Renee Dominguez, Asst. Chief Karl Jacobson, patrol chief Lt. Mark O’Neill, top Westville Cop Lt. Elliot Rosa.
Dominguez said it’s common for officers to reach out to more senior members of a department for advice on how to do well on promotional exams. “Many times candidates have study groups,” she said.
She said she was not aware of any wrongdoing, but she promised to “delve further” into the complaints brought forward by the ministers to make sure.
She confirmed that two test-takers have filed appeals of their results. A panel will review the complaint and rewatch the oral portions of their exams, she said.
At the press conference, Rev. Boise Kimber placed the lack of diversity in top ranks at the feet of Mayor Justin Elicker.
“There is no real leadership” coming from him on the issue, Kimber charged.
“It is all of our goal to increase diversity in the department,” Elicker responded. He called it “not only the right thing to do” but a “way to make the police department more effective.”
The department has seen “progress” in that direction, with five of nine recently promoted sergeants being either female and/or people of color, Elicker said. “There is more work to be done.”
He added that the lieutenant promotional list has not been certified. “We don’t know what the results will be,” he said. He added that it’s also important “to be fair” and follow the law in making promotions. “The city has a history of the testing process not being done fairly,” Elicker noted. (This current suit, for instance.) And he noted Rev. Kimber’s role in that: When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a fire promotion test in the 2009 case Ricci v. DeStefano, Justice Samuel Alito cited remarks by Rev. Kimber, then a fire commissioner, as a basis of concluding racial bias had unfairly limited the opportunities of white test-takers.
Police departments tend to be overwhelmingly white. For context, it might be helpful to know what police departments in the US (if any) are more diverse than New Haven's, other than NYC and places along the Texas border.
I think Hartford's police department is around 85% white for example, even though that city is not much over 10% white, but could be wrong about that. And I think Waterbury is almost entirely white. As the retirements in New Haven show, these numbers can change quickly, though.