A second top cop has moved across the country to help lead New Haven’s police department, completing a new team of four assistant chiefs.
Kenneth Gillespie (pictured) was sworn in at police headquarters Monday afternoon as the fourth assistant chief. Gillespie, 51, has been a cop for 30 years. He retired as a captain in the Pomona, Ca., department in order to come east to take the New Haven job.
By filling the four positions, the city has now completed a major recommendation of the so-called “PERF” report, a reform blueprint prepared by a panel of experts in the wake of a police corruption scandal.
Mayor John DeStefano administered the oath of office to Gillespie in a low-key ceremony that reflected, in the mayor’s words, a sense in town that a revived department has started to get to work on addressing quality-of-life problems in town.
Gillespie said he was willing to make the move at this point in his career because he worked out west for James Lewis, the former Pomona chief who recently took over the New Haven department on an 18-month contract.
“He’s one of the best chiefs I’ve ever known,” Gillespie said Monday. He said he looks forward to the “challenge” of beefing up the operations side of the department. That’s his portfolio as assistant chief. A lack of accountability and basic management systems and policy procedures was one main concern of the PERF report. Under Lewis in Pomona, Gillespie oversaw the rewriting of the department’s policy manual. He also did stints in narcotics, internal affairs, traffic (“motors”), the SWAT team, and recruitment.
Roy Brown is the other Lewis pal from California who moved East to take an assistant chief’s post. “There was no any other chief I know of who was going to convince me to come out here,” said Brown, who’s 62 and the former police chief of Claremont, California. He’s on the left in this photo standing at Monday’s ceremony besides the two assistant chiefs who come from within the New Haven department: Pete Reichard, who oversees investigations, Stephanie Redding, who’s in charge of administration.
“We’re not here to ‘fix’ stuff,” Brown said. Rather, the goal is to “help give a sense of direction and develop some policies to fit national standards.”
Gillespie said he’s not necessarily looking at his New Haven gig as an 18-month temporary stay like Chief Lewis’s. He and his wife are currently renting an apartment in Westville; they plan to buy a home, he said. (His children are all 18 or older.) “I’m here for an indefinite period,” Gillespie said. “It really depends on how I fit in and how the city fits me.”
I love how the city is flat out broke, laying off people left and right, there's no police overtime....but somehow the city can swinagle money together to pay for 3 new high-ranking chiefs. I really hope it pays off in the end.