Thomas Breen photo
Commissioners gather for vote that ended up not happening.
Top police forced a recruit with a history of domestic violence out of the academy after he lied about multiple drunken fights with his girlfriend and about brandishing a gun at a fight at a casino.
On Wednesday evening, the Board of Police Commissioners gathered on the third floor of the city police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. to consider Police Chief Anthony Campbell’s recommendation to dismiss the recruit, Tyree Blackwell, from the current police academy class.
The commissioners wound up not having to convene the meeting. Campbell announced at 6:45 p.m., 45 minutes after the scheduled start of the special meeting, that Blackwell had decided to resign from the academy rather than face the commissioners’ questions and evaluation.
The case against Blackwell is detailed in a 16-page Internal Affairs (IA) investigatory report written by Sgt. Christopher Fennessy that describes Blackwell’s history of domestic violence, alcohol abuse, and drunken brawling. The report also describes how Blackwell lied about each of those matters in his March 19 application to become a police officer.
Chief Campbell said that, after he read the completed IA report, he knew that Blackwell was not a good candidate to become an officer because of integrity issues and standard training requirements for police officers in training.
“Anytime I recommend someone be dismissed from the Academy or from the job,” he said by text message on Thursday afternoon, “it’s because they don’t meet the requirements that post has as a standard.”
Fennessy and Internal Affairs head Lt. David Zannelli published the IA report on Oct. 31, following three weeks of investigating allegations that Blackwell, a Stratford native, “was involved in ongoing domestic violence and was abusing his girlfriend.”
The move comes at a time when the department is wrestling with domestic violence in its ranks. Five other city cops have been arrested in recent months on domestic violence charges. Click here, here, and here to read more about that.
Police brass had brought Blackwell up for removal three previous times. Those past times, the commissioners voted not to remove him.
The Initial Complaint
The police were tipped off to problems with Blackwell’s conduct by an anonymous caller, identified in the report as “Concerned Citizen” or C.C., who first reached out to the department on Oct. 9.
Lt. Rob Criscuolo, who heads the police academy, spoke with C.C., who stated that Blackwell is physically and emotionally abusive towards his girlfriend, and that C.C. had seen Blackwell’s girlfriend with a black eye and bruises.
“C.C. also referenced an incident at Foxwoods Casino,” Fennessy wrote, “in which Blackwell instigated a physical fight and threatened his friend … with a handgun while Blackwell was intoxicated. C.C. stated that Blackwell has done this with other people in the past as well.”
Finally, C.C. referenced an incident where Blackwell allegedly slammed his girlfriend’s head into a table at a diner in Stratford.
The informant reached out to the department to reveal this information out of fear that “Blackwell may become more abusive now that he is becoming a police officer.”
Fennessy followed up with a phone interview with C.C. on Oct. 11, during which the informant shared with the IA investigator the same information shared with Criscuolo.
Fennessy called Det. Randy Brule of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Police for information on the alleged Foxwoods Casino fight, which he heard had taken place in March, but the detective told him that the casino had no records of any fights taking place on that date.
“Kind Of A Mush” At A Stratford Diner
Markeshia Ricks photo
Chief Campbell: Recruit’s conduct did not meet department standards.
The New Haven sergeant then turned to the Stratford Police Department, where he obtained body camera footage and a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) report from the February night when Blackwell allegedly abused his girlfriend at the Duchess Diner in Stratford.
The CAD report states that whoever called the police reported that a male and a female were arguing in a booth and the male pushed the female’s head up against a wall.
“In the Stratford Officers’ body camera footage,” Fennessy wrote, “Blackwell is seated in the driver side seat of his vehicle with the car running.”
Blackwell slurs his words and appears intoxicated, he continued. When the officers ask him to move to the passenger side of the car, Blackwell accidentally presses the gas pedal, causing the vehicle’s engine to rev, before getting out of the car and swapping seats with a friend.
When Blackwell exits the vehicle, the Stratford officers notice that he is carrying a firearm on his person.
“You know you can lose that permit for your gun, right?” one of the officers says in reference to Blackwell’s carrying a gun while intoxicated.
“Blackwell responds in an agitated and dismissive tone,” Fennessy wrote, “by saying, ‘yes, I know.’” Blackwell then shows the Stratford officers his pistol permit.
The officers go into the diner, where they find Blackwell’s girlfriend, intoxicated and still sitting in a booth with another male. She tells the officers that she and Blackwell argued, but that everything is “fine now.” The man she is sitting with, identified as Tavarr Foust, describes the alleged incident as “‘kind of a mush,” referring to the way Blackwell “physically pushed” his girlfriend.
“He Didn’t Push Me, Push Me”
On Oct. 23, Fennessy interviewed Blackwell’s girlfriend in person at the New Haven police headquarters. She told the sergeant that she couldn’t recall every detail of the incident at the Stratford diner because she was intoxicated at the time. She also told the sergeant that she had believed that night that she was being followed by an unknown vehicle as she drove to the diner.
“When asked specifically about Blackwell striking her,” Fennessy wrote, “she replied, ‘He didn’t push me, push me.’” When asked to elaborate, the girlfriend said she and Blackwell were arguing loudly, and when the girlfriend tried to exit the diner booth, Blackwell pushed her back down into the booth. She said she was not injured by the push. She also told Fennessy that she never felt unsafe around Blackwell.
When asked if there were any other times when she and Blackwell fought and when those fights led to incidents of domestic violence, the girlfriend stated that “when they start arguing that they will usually ‘bring it home’ and argue at home.”
She told Fennessy that she was concerned about saying something that would get Blackwell kicked out of the police academy. She “repeatedly stated that Blackwell has never become violent with her.”
“I Didn’t Want To Get In Trouble”
On Oct. 23, Fennessy and Sgt. Yessennia Agosto interviewed Blackwell at 1 Union Ave. When asked why he thought he was being questioned by the investigators, Blackwell said he thought it might have to do with text messages he sent to a female fellow recruit.
When Fennessy and Agosto asked him about the Stratford diner incident, Blackwell said that he had been hanging out with friends at Maxwell’s Bar and Grill in Stratford earlier that same night. He said he had had only one drink while at Maxwell’s.
When he left and arrived at the diner, his girlfriend told him that she had been followed from Stamford by an unknown vehicle. Blackwell said that he got up from the booth to see if anyone was following her, and that his girlfriend tried to grab his arm when he stood.
“As Blackwell pulled away,” Fennessy wrote about Blackwell’s accounting of events, his girlfriend “fell back in the booth on her ‘bottom.’”
Blackwell told the officers that he spoke with the Stratford police in the diner’s parking lot, and told them about his girlfriend being followed, then went out to scan the parking lot in search of the vehicle.
Blackwell and the New Haven interviewers then watched the Stratford police body cam. The IA team pointed out the discrepancies between Blackwell’s story and what played out in the video.
Fennessy asked Blackwell if he believed he was intoxicated having watched the video, where he continually slurs his speech when talking to the Stratford officers. “Blackwell responded ‘Yes’ and that he was, ‘embarrassed,’” Fennessy wrote.
Fennessy asked Blackwell if the recruit included this incident in his police academy application, where he said he had only been drunk three times in the past year.
“Blackwell stated that he would now change his answer to a higher number because this incident was not included in the three times he answered he was intoxicated in the past year during his background questioning,” Fennessy wrote.
Fennessy asked Blackwell if the recruit knew that carrying a pistol while intoxicated is against the law. Blackwell responded, “Absolutely,” and said that he removed his firearm from his person after he was stopped by the Stratford police.
Fennessy referenced a question on Blackwell’s New Haven Police Department (NHPD) background interview to which the recruit stated that he had never been involved in a fight or a police encounter while intoxicated.
Blackwell then amended his version of what had happened that night inside the Stratford diner. He said he and his girlfriend had gotten into a loud argument about the vehicle that may have been following her. He said that his girlfriend had gotten upset during the fight and had pushed him, and that Blackwell had pushed her back.
Blackwell told New Haven investigators that he drove back to his mother’s place after the diner incident. The investigators pointed out that, in his academy application, he wrote that he had never driven while intoxicated.
“That’s not a truthful statement sir,” Blackwell said about his prior assertion.
When asked why he answered in the way that he did, Blackwell responded, “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
Blackwell told the investigators that he had also not reported an incident at Maxwell’s where he drank too much and got in a shouting argument with a friend. He admitted to also not reporting an incident in Stamford where he and his girlfriend were intoxicated, got into an argument, and she allegedly pulled Blackwell’s necklace off of his neck.
Fixing His Gun At The Casino
Fennessy then asked Blackwell to tell him about what happened at Foxwoods casino in February.
Blackwell said he was in an elevator with a group of friends. He got into an argument with one of them, pushed him, then that friend punched something in the elevator and hurt his hand.
“I explained to Blackwell that I did not believe his account of the incident at Foxwoods to be completely truthful,” Fennessy wrote. He asked Blackwell if the recruit had his firearm at him at the time of the incident. Blackwell admitted to having his gun on him.
“Blackwell responded that his handgun may have become ‘visible’ during the fight,” Fennessy wrote.
He admitted to taking the gun out of its holster, but only to “fix it.” He denied making any threats with the gun.
Fennessy informed him that carrying a firearm is prohibited at the casino since it is on tribal grounds. He said that Blackwell had indicated in his police application that he had never committed a crime for which he was not punished.
Fennessy asked Blackwell if the answer to that question should still be “no.”
“I would not sir,” Blackwell said.
Fennessy and Agosto asked Blackwell if there were any other domestic violent incidents he had been a part of that he didn’t report on his application. Blackwell revealed an incident in which he got in a loud argument with his girlfriend and a friend had to intervene. And then another this summer when he got in an argument with his girlfriend while in a car, and she allegedly threw a phone at him, striking him in the leg.
“Blackwell did not disclose any of the above incidents in his NHPD background process,” Fennessy wrote.
At the end of the report, Fennessy concluded that the allegations that the department had received about Blackwell’s history of domestic abuse were well founded.
“Ultimately, this information was corroborated that Blackwell was involved in several incidents of domestic violence with [his girlfriend] and that he, by his own admission, did not reveal truthfully during his NHPD background process.”
“The allegations made against Recruit Tyree Blackwell,” the report ends, “are sustained.”
As a former retired New Haven Police Department sworn officer and former administrator I have been waiting for an article like this to be published by the nice but also politically biased Mr. Thomas Breen. Mr. Blackwell should have never been in the Police Academy. To my knowledge I was informed by various officers that this young man has been brought before the Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) two separate times. Both times the BOPC gave this gentleman a pass. The spotlight should be on the BOPC, it appears NOW SEASONED background investigators brought this to the chain of command, the Chief agreed and in return brought this to the attention of the BOPC. Once again, I repeat, THEY FAILED THIS COMMUNITY TWO TIMES, luckily this anonymous person brought this back to the attention of the PD and the city was able to dodge a figurative bullet by this young man possibly being sworn in as an officer for this great city.
Mr. Breen, please inform the community and viewing audience why you did not bring this to light? The simple and acceptable answer would be that you did not have the information. Or you did and chose to ignore it. I am hoping it's not the latter. We expect the NHPD to be held to a high standard, I also expect our BOPC to be held to better decision making. An officer can have issues on the job relative to what was highlighted by their background investigators, it was brought to the attention of the BOPC, ignored then passed through....I'm wondering why the Chief and the brass take the blame and not the BOPC???
The state of the American society and it's fixation on accountability for bad apple cops has to be paramount. The only way we can work towards bridging that gap is by not allowing questionable candidates to become officers, make bad apple cops that are on the job accountable for their actions through progressive discipline or termination. It's that simple. If you admit to being arrested (DUI/DV etc) and plead guilty you should be terminated.
[Note: Thanks for the comment! I indeed did not know anything about this recruit until I started working on this story on Wednesday night. I did not know about his prior appearances before the BOPC. Thanks for asking, and for the info. We have confirmed the information and added it.]