Skip to content

Breaking News

‘A turning point in law enforcement:’ Connecticut police chiefs respond to George Floyd’s death, nationwide protests and what comes next

A Connecticut State Trooper prays with Nathaniel Swift, right, in the middle of Interstate 84 after it was closed down by hundreds protesting the death of George Floyd, Monday, June 1, 2020, in Hartford, Conn. Said Swift, "It's a spiritual world, you gotta have peace, you gotta have love, God doesn't want us to murder people he wants us to love each other, it's as simple as that." (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant via AP)
Mark Mirko/AP
A Connecticut State Trooper prays with Nathaniel Swift, right, in the middle of Interstate 84 after it was closed down by hundreds protesting the death of George Floyd, Monday, June 1, 2020, in Hartford, Conn. Said Swift, “It’s a spiritual world, you gotta have peace, you gotta have love, God doesn’t want us to murder people he wants us to love each other, it’s as simple as that.” (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant via AP)
AuthorAuthor
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

For Milford Chief of Police Keith L. Mello the death of George Floyd is certainly a turning point for the nation, but it is also “a turning point in law enforcement.”

“I think people sometimes forget that we’re also human beings, said Mello, who is also the president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association. “We think about our own family and our own children, and we realize that there’s so much work that needs to be done. … It’s disgusting. It’s not something that that any of us as human beings can understand. I hope I speak for most, and certainly I’m including police officers in that.”

In the wake of Floyd’s death and amid protests in scores of cities across Connecticut and the nation, current and former police chiefs in Connecticut are expressing anger, frustration and sadness while outlining the need for community policing reforms.

“We’re disgusted that anyone wearing a police uniform would do what we all saw in that video,” said James C. Rovella, commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, in a statement released Monday.

“We’re angry that the actions of a few will affect all of us. If you wear a badge and aren’t appalled by that what you saw, please turn it in and find a new profession; we don’t need you. For the sake of the community, for the sake of good law enforcement officers everywhere and for the sake of our country, enough is enough.”

On Monday, hundreds of Hartford protesters blocked I-84 in the city. Over the weekend, protesters closed down major Connecticut highways, including I-95 in New Haven, Route 8 in Bridgeport and I-84 in Waterbury. Demonstrations continued Monday, including one at Keney Park in Hartford and in Bristol. For the most part, protests have remained peaceful.

“You can’t be in the spectator stands because the community needs to know what you feel and what you believe,” said Dean M. Esserman, former chief of the New Haven Police Department and former chief of police in Stamford and Providence, Rhode Island.

“Silence is not an option.”

A collective wince

Esserman, who now serves as senior counselor to the National Police Foundation, said law enforcement must address a “legacy of abuse and misdirection for generations of people who wore the uniform before us” before relationships between police officers and citizens can improve.

“I know people who don’t believe in the Catholic Church anymore, but they believe in their pastor,” Esserman said. “They don’t believe in organized medicine anymore, but they believe in their family doctor. I don’t need them to believe in the police chief. I don’t need them to believe in the police department, I need them to believe in their police officer on the beat. In the end, the authority of the police comes from the public.”

West Hartford police chief Vern Riddick, who previously served as chief of police in Waterbury, said he was “just very troubled, very concerned for the Floyd family and just for Americans in general… The country is hurting at this point, and I share their pain.”

Riddick, who also serves as vice-president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, said he observed a “multiplicity of failures” in the video of Floyd’s death, including the use of knee-to-neck force.

“It’s my understanding that in Minnesota, some type of use of force at the neck area is allowed,” Riddick said. “I certainly do not believe, nor do I endorse, what I saw in that video. That’s not correct at all. … The second part of the failure is no intervention by the other officers there. Three, we take an oath for preservation of life, and that person was killed in front of our eyes, and that’s not what we’re about. That’s not the oath that we took. We’re supposed to help people. We have to recognize that.”

Former Branford Police Chief John DeCarlo said that “thousands of good cops in the United States, looked at that and we collectively winced.”

DeCarlo, an associate professor in the criminal justice department at the University of New Haven, said that, like any population, the roughly 700,000 or so police officers can be thought of as a bell curve; the top 10 percent represents “fantastic cops … people who have really changed policing for the better over the last couple of decades,” while the middle 80 percent are “doing their job.”

The bottom 10 percent “shouldn’t be cops. This is just a statistical reality. It’s not a guess. It’s not a proclamation. It’s not a prognostication. It’s a fact that we have 70,000 cops in the United States that shouldn’t be cops. They don’t have the aptitude for it.”

The responsibility of improving police culture, DeCarlo added, falls on the political bodies that control policing, because “once you’re in [the culture], it’s kind of hard not to go along with it.”

“There’s a culture in every organization,” DeCarlo said. “If it’s a bad culture, you tend to go along with rather than fight. We need the cop on the job to identify that something is going wrong, the cop on the job to come over to that police officer who had his knee on the neck of Floyd and move that knee off.”

‘Changes need to be made’

Former Hartford Police Chief Bernard Sullivan was a patrolman in the city when rioting broke out in 1968. Sullivan remembers that he and his fellow officers were untrained and ill-equipped to handle what they were facing as the department scrounged up construction helmets and World War I era headgear for protection.

“It was mayhem, you know?” Sullivan said Monday.

The damage caused by the riots was both physical and emotional as burned-out businesses took years to return and the trust between police and the community was broken.

“It took a while to get it back. There was a big mistrust,” Sullivan said. “A lot of blame was placed on the cops.”

But many police departments also learned lessons and began to create positions and units dedicated to community outreach.

“One of the best things I did was create community service officers [positions],” said Sullivan, who was chief 1982 to 1989. “In Hartford they’ve been smart enough to understand that you have to police with the community.”

Sullivan said that relationship with the community will be critical to preventing a repeat of 1968.

“First you have to reach out [to community leaders] and ask for help to try and de-escalate the situation,” he said.

Sullivan suggested implementing national standards for police departments, improved training in the use of force and more stringent screening of officer candidates. He also believes that it should be easier for municipalities to fire officers who are found to have used excessive force or committed other crimes.

In the coming aftermath, “changes need to be made and changes will be made,” said Mello. “Our job is to manage these protests, and most of these protests are peaceful.”

Mello said the CPCA is currently preparing an agenda that includes public forums. “People want to know that we’re listening and that we’re hearing what they’re saying,” he said. “Our intention is to see where the needle can be moved in some way and on some of these legislative issues, because we’ve we’ve worked with the legislature in the past. I want to continue to do that.”

For now, Mello will focus on the needs of the community.

“Yeah, this is a tough job. We’re placed in some very, very difficult situations and sometimes it’s that difficult for people to understand. But we’ve got to come to work every day and do our best to try to make sure that we are providing fair and just and balanced law enforcement. We have to continue to work and make sure people feel like we represent everyone, and that everyone is equal.”

Michael Hamad can be reached at mhamad@courant.com.