HQ Press

By Mackenzie Campbell

When an officer dies unexpectedly after six years of active service, it’s difficult to forget the impact he or she made on those that work within their police station.

That can be said for K-9, Viking, who died on Saturday, Sept. 15.

Hamden police officers say they will remember Viking for helping them arrest violent offenders.

But for Sergeant Jason Venditto, Viking’s memory will live on differently.

The journey started when Sergeant Venditto became an officer with the Milford Police Department in 1999. After spending a year and a half in Milford he relocated and joined the Hamden Police Department.

“I have been in Hamden for eighteen years now,” said Venditto. “In September of 2003 I became a K-9 handler.”

Before he picked Viking, Venditto worked with another K-9 for ten years on the Hamden Police Force.

“I picked Viking and I trained him myself,” said Venditto. “ It took me about seven months to get him trained and on the road.”

Through training, the relationship between the two partners grew stronger as they learned how to work together as a cohesive unit.

“It is constant maintenance training,” said Venditto. “Once you finish your initial training you have to continue the training, you have to do something every day if you want to be a good team and succeed.”

While the K-9 worked closely with Sergeant Venditto, he became part of the Venditto family.

Venditto’s  son, 14, and daughter, 18,  began to cultivate loving relationships with Viking after a short time.

“Both dogs lived at home with myself and my family,” said Venditto. “For fifteen years we have had a police dog living with us in our home.”

Venditto spoke of the close relationships his children shared with Viking. “My children were wonderful [with Viking] , especially my son.”

“Viking just ended up taking to him,” he said.  “He is the one person I could trust with the dog besides myself.”

The week leading up to Sept. 15, Sergeant Venditto attended a K-9 training seminar in Kansas City, Missouri.

“I put Viking in a kennel while I was away, thinking that he would be safer there,” said Venditto.

Sergeant Venditto left on a Monday and got home late on Friday, Sept. 14., later than he expected and unable to pick up Viking from the kennel.

Early Saturday morning Venditto unexpectedly woke up to a phone call.

“I got a call from Cheshire emergency vet on Saturday morning saying that the kennel brought Viking down because he didn’t look right,” Venditto said.

Overnight, Viking had developed stomach bloat – when a dog’s stomach twists and then fills with gas. If the condition goes unnoticed it is life threatening and requires surgery.

“I was told they were doing emergency surgery on him and I rushed down to the vet,” said Venditto.

After moving Viking into surgery, the veterinarian informed Venditto that there was too much organ failure and there wasn’t much that they could do to help Viking.

“I never even got to say goodbye to him,” said Venditto. “I had to tell them to euthanize him while he was in surgery.”

Weeks after the loss of his beloved partner, Sergeant Venditto is still grieving and finding ways to work through his loss with his children.

“They both took it tough, “ said Venditto. “My son was very upset because he loved Viking.”

“I think my daughter was more upset because she knew how much I loved Viking and she didn’t want to see me upset.”

Sergeant Venditto and his family were not prepared to say goodbye to Viking but his memory will not fade away.

“I am doing better,” said Venditto. “I appreciate all of the support and condolences we are receiving after the loss of Viking.”

By Taylor Giangregorio and Amanda Perelli

In efforts to save money and improve schools, the Hamden Board of Education is planning on redistricting, moving sixth graders into middle schools, and buying the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School building to improve public school programs.

John Fitzpatrick, from New Haven, has two children who go to Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School, which his children may not be attending if the Hamden Board of Education and Town decide on taking the building back.

Fitzpatrick picked Wintergreen for its excellent reputation.

“The purpose of it is to bring together kids from many different municipalities and the rationale behind that is if you have a school like that rather than the neighborhood schools, it is better for everybody,” Fitzpatrick said.

“Strictly neighborhood schools tend to be racially segregated because neighborhoods tend to be segregated. If you have a school like Wintergreen that draws from many different areas and racially integrated than everybody seems to benefit.”

The problem is that the property where the school building sits, on Wintergreen Ave., is owned by the Town of Hamden. The town leases the property to a program called Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES) and Hamden is now considering taking the building back to use for their own public schools.

“We did not know at the time [of choosing this school] that the school building is not owned by ACES,” Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick believes that Hamden wants the building back because they have budget problems and a declining school enrollment. If they take back the building they will not only have an additional building in good condition, but more students placed back in their system.

The Board of Education receives an average one percent increase in budget on an annual basis. Christopher Daur, chairperson of the board of education, is working on consolidation to save money and regain an interracial balance in Hamden schools.

“We have no financial control over these interdistrict magnet schools and we can only just pay the bill. We get an average of a little over one percent a year, and they were looking at five percent, upwards to eight percent, increases a year. That creates a real budget strain for us, because we just can’t afford that,” said Daur. “The agreement we made with the predecessor to ACES twenty years ago was that they would operate Wintergreen and they, at that point in time, paid for the improvements necessary to improve the school. Those twenty years are up, and the town is looking at it as a financial asset to see if that’s the best way to go for the town.”

Hamden has to pay ACES for every Hamden student that attends Wintergreen.

“We think [Wintergreen] is a great school and we want our kids to keep going there,” Fitzpatrick said. “We want the school to remain as it is and remain where it is. So we have been attending board of [education] meetings, writing letters and making phone calls and taking surveys and making signs and wearing T-shirts to convince the board of ed that Wintergreen should stay in Hamden and that Hamden should stay a member of the partnership.”

Daur said, “We are committed to education the children that go to Wintergreen. The model at this point, with the way that the state has done funding, creates a lot of issues. They have dramatically decreased the funding to these interdistrict magnet schools and with that the district magnet schools have cut back on their program.”  

Fitzpatrick is unsure of where he will send his children if Hamden plans to take the building.

“ACES has ensured us that the school will continue even if it is not in that building, so if Hamden decides to take the building than ACES will have to find another home for Wintergreen starting next september,” Fitzpatrick said.  

Wintergreen is a K-8 school with over 600 students from partner districts in Connecticut. The school has partnerships with Hamden, Meriden, New Haven, Wallingford and Woodbridge. Children are accepted into the school through a lottery system.

“In looking at this vision, it was a financial and a balancing issue. We couldn’t really come up with a plan that everybody liked because some of these are very hard decisions to make. We took a step back and said, ‘well, how do we envision the school district going forward for the next 20 years?,” Daur said.

Hamden’s “3R Initiative: Rethink Restructure Results” includes five goals to improve the school district. Hamden is planning on moving the sixth grade from elementary to middle schools, creating a possibility of closing two elementary schools to consolidate and improve resources and programming.

“We’ve had four public meetings in the last month in and a half, we have a workshop scheduled for monday. We’re putting the word out of what we’re trying to do. We’re being as transparent as possible, and we’ve got quite a bit of feedback from parents and internalizing that, using all that information to make our best decision and encouraging the board members to speak their opinions, to digest the information, and make the best choice possible,” said Daur.

“Right now, the implementation of this redistricting would be most probably in September of 2021, two years away.”