Police Commission Overrides Chief On Cop Applicants

Four aspiring cops had to convince the Board of Police Commissioners for a second time to OK their applications, and they succeeded.

The four applicants had already gone through the process of landing a spot in the upcoming police academy class for recruits. But then a scandal hit the police department: Two (now former) cops had fabricated documents while conducting background checks on applicants. So Police Chief Anthony Campbell delayed the opening of the academy class, put 39 job offers on hold, and had more seasoned officers review all background checks.

The result: He recommended that the commissioners reject 14 applicants for a variety of reasons.

The first seven of those applicants were scheduled to come before the police commissioners for a last appeal at a meeting Tuesday night at 1 Union Ave. (The next seven cases willb e heard at a subsequent meeting.)

Before the meeting, one of the seven withdrew his application. The commissioners upheld Campbell’s suggestion to reject a second applicant. whose had not been previously considered by the board.

But otherwise, the board overrode Campbell’s recommendations for the other five cops and voted to allow them to join the new academy class, scheduled to begin Sept. 10. (Four of the five had previously been vetted by the former background checkers.

That was the latest turn in events, as all approximately 39 candidates in the class are being reinvestigated, with top priority being given to all 21 touched by the tainted background investigation files.

All will be coming before the board again due to events triggered back in May, after the two now-former officers were found to have fabricated background checks in at least these 21 instances.

“I wanted to start fresh. So I assigned new investigators, redid their backgrounds, and they appeared with the same flags. Even though they had moved forward, I wanted to make sure there was no impropriety,” Campbell said.

Campbell had already previously suggested rejected four of the applicants who came before the board Tuesday night. And the board had overridden the chief’s recommendations then, as it did Tuesday night.

When a candidate is flagged for removal, he or she is so notified. At this stage in the process, Campbell explained, anyone with a serious blot on their record, like a felony, is long gone.

When he asks the board to consider ​“removal,” it usually has to do with their reviewing employment history or drug use in years gone by, or small matters that may in the chief’s view add up to a reason to reject an application.

Candidates are informed by letter and then they have an opportunity to review their file, and then to make their case in person either in public or private session before the commissioners.

The police commissioners, not the chief, have the ultimate authority to hire and to fire. When the chief, based on the background reports, flags investigative concerns, it is ultimately up to the commissioners to weigh the evidence of the file along with explanations of the candidate in an in-person interview and then to make the final decisions on who is to remain an eligible candidate and who is to be removed from the list.

On Tuesday night, all six of the candidates chose to speak to the commissioners privately in executive session.

In executive session, closed to the press because it dealt with personnel matters, the board reviewed the cases.

Then, in public session, members voted unanimously to keep on as candidates for the academy class Christopher Chin, Travis Miller, Claire Rieser, and Jawan Haddock, all of whom had been part of the applicants about to be offered jobs. They also sustained Kiyaniah Simpkins, a new candidate. And they voted for the one removal.

Commissioner Evelise Ribeiro said afterward that the commissioners did not consider any of the blots on the applicants’ records to rise to the level of rejection.

The seventh officer on the agenda for removal has in the interim accepted a job with the police department in Hartford, so he withdrew his application to New Haven, Campbell said.

“I’m like the screener,” said Campbell. ​“They [candidates] are not perfect. The board is the hiring authority.”

In the case of the one removal Tuesday night, the issue raised came up on the psychology test, Campbell reported. In the case of another candidate, whose continuing in the process was sustained, the new investigators spotted an issue of gun ownership that previous investigators had missed, Campbell added.

With the force down 106 officers — and with another 52 eligible for retirement before the end of the year — Campbell told the commissioners before they saw the candidates that ​“it’s imperative we get this class placed. So we’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s.”

The three new examining officers for this batch of applicants were also in the room as the candidates made their cases, should the commissioners have questions.

The new officers, all experienced investigators, are Officers Yelena Borosova and Chris Simon, and Detective Freddy Salmeron.

Also attending the session was William Tanner, the certification officer from the state Police Officer Standards and Training Council (POST), to whom Campbell had written to for advice.

The redoing of the vetting process for all the potential officers — not just the ones whose files were tainted due to the malfeasance of the two now departed examiners — was aimed at ​“making it a level for everyone,” Campbell said.

With the shortage of officers acute and growing, Campbell called the re-vetting of officers and placing of new classes in the academy ​“a full court press.”

Normally five or six officers work on the background checks and vetting process; now double that number are assigned. That includes not only the examiners’ unit but virtually the whole of the Internal Affairs department, he said.

Meanwhile, approximately half the officers in the postponed class of 39, are in the process of applying to other police departments, according to Campbell.

With the police contract still in negotiating limbo and often higher pay being offered in other cities, departures of young officers — and officers-to-be — have become a chronic problem.

Campbell said he hopes to have this class start training on Sept 10, have another begin in November and then have two more moving through New Haven’s academy in 2019. The limit to each class at New Haven’s training academy is 40, although there are potentially slots for six additional trainees at POST, he added.