The Hamden Police Department is now accepting applications for its 11th session of the Hamden Citizen’s Police Academy.
The academy, which will begin on March 26, is designed to provide residents with important knowledge through education and conversation.
Hamden Police Capt. Ronald Smith spoke about the importance of the training program.
Members of the 2019 Hamden Citizens Police Academy pose for a group photo.
Detective John Inglese/Hamden Police Department
“It gives us the opportunity to explain to our residents, business owners, and college students, what the Hamden police department does and why we do things the way that we do,” Smith said. “It also gives us an opportunity to listen to our residents’ complaints about how we can make their lives better.”
Smith adds the academy’s origin stems from the ever-changing role of a police officer.
“The primary focus is now on community policing, so we here at the Hamden Police Department are always looking to engage the community in certain types of events,” Smith said. “The Citizen’s Police Academy has been highly successful and the people that have attended have enjoyed it immensely.”
Hamden’s Acting Deputy Chief, John Sullivan, shares his thoughts on the academy.
“We’re learning from them just as well as they’re learning from us,” Sullivan said. “It’s created a really good bond with the people we serve and a very good teaching tool for everyone. Citizens are more aware of their surroundings and what’s going on in the community.”
Sullivan mentions that the information makes people more useful as witnesses.
As it relates to the involvement of Quinnipiac University, Sullivan believes there is tremendous value in the academy and he encourages all students to attend.
Smith also acknowledged that Quinnipiac students have enrolled in the past and he hopes to see more in the future.
“You don’t have to make every class. If you only make a few, at least you are learning something. We encourage Quinnipiac University students to attend this class because it’s fun,” Smith said. “It’s not a classroom where someone is just providing you information on a PowerPoint, it’s interactive with a lot of laughs, and there’s a canine demonstration, which a lot of people enjoy.”
Smith adds that the academy has made people feel more comfortable living in Hamden.
“We just want to make sure that everybody enjoys their time here in Hamden and if there is an issue, we’re here to provide them the assistance that they need. It’s been a positive experience and I haven’t heard anything negative about it.”
Hamden’s Deputy Directors for Emergency Management, Bob Freeman, is happy he completed the program.
Freeman, who’s been involved in emergency management for over 40 years and is the current Coordinator for Hamden’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), believes that the program is worthy of peoples’ time.
“Without exaggerating, this program was one of the most rewarding presentations that I have been part of in my entire career,” Freeman said.
The academy helped Freeman understand the stress and commitment that it takes to be a law enforcement officer. He also commends the Hamden Police Department for putting it all together.
“The instruction and information presented by Captain Ron Smith, Sergeant Brent Zuscin and their Brother & Sister Police Officers were beyond excellence and displayed every part of the job they do,” Freeman said.
Protesters left the streets of Hamden on Monday and marched into Mayor Curt Balzano Leng’s, office demanding that Hamden’s police commission conduct an independent investigation of a police-involved shooting that happened two weeks prior.
Demonstrators are still requesting that Devin Eaton, the Hamden Police Department officer involved in the shooting of an unarmed couple, be fired immediately.
Mayor Leng said that he does not have the power to fire Eaton although he agrees with what the protestors are requesting.
“I have seen enough to say that I don’t think that Officer Eaton should be a Hamden police officer any longer,” Leng said.
Although Hamden PD cannot head the criminal investigation, the department’s ethics and integrity unit will also conduct its own local investigation, according to Mayor Leng.
The two officers involved are on paid leave while the investigation remains underway.
Kiesha Greene, the mother of the unarmed driver involved in the shooting, Paul Witherspoon III, addressed the media Monday and said she agrees that the officers should be fired.
Greene said that she believes the shooting does not only concern her son and Stephanie Washington, the woman who was shot, but that it’s about the community and its entirety.
“Next week it could be somebody else’s child, and I don’t want to see this happen to anyone’s kid,” Greene said.
She voiced her disappointment in not being contacted by the ministers who held the prayer service Sunday in New Haven at the Varick Memorial Church in wake of the shooting.
“How do you have that type of meeting and not have the victims there or the victim’s parents there, because aren’t you talking about the situation that happened,” she said. “Wouldn’t you want to be able to speak to us and have our voices be heard?”
The service was called Hope for Healing and community leaders joined law enforcement officials to focus on finding healing and helping to build trust between the community and law enforcement.
Jacob Schmidt, a 22-year-old Yale student from Richmond, Michigan, decided to go to the service after participating in two of the protests that happened near his school.
“It was so powerful to see everyone come together, leave their apprehensions at the door and commit to a peaceful service,” Schmidt said. “I think this is something that the community should continue to aspire to.”
Pastor of the service, Kelcy G.I Steele, said he believes religious leaders must play a part in improving the community’s policing.
“We are committed to building bridges between police and community and we understand that policing in America is facing a crisis of legitimacy and purpose,” Steele said, according to WFSB.
Connecticut State Police have yet to come to a conclusion on the investigation. During a press conference last Tuesday, the latest information on the investigation and Officer Eaton’s body cam footage from the incident were released.
The state’s public safety commissioner, James Rovella, conducted the press conference. He noted that the release of the footage marked a difference in operation procedures.
“Before we used to not show any of this until the conclusion of the investigation,” Rovella said.
Rovella said that state police do not have footage from the Yale officer Terrence Pollock because his body cam was not turned on during the time of the incident.
“In a perfect world, he would have turned on his camera sooner, but the officer was facing many stressors at the time,” he said.
Rovella revealed that the communication between Hamden PD and New Haven during the night of the shooting may have contributed to how the incident played out.
“Hamden tells New Haven that, in fact, they’ve had an armed robbery involving a firearm. They did not tell New Haven that Hamden was actually entering their city,” Rovella said.
He stated that the officers involved will not be charged until the investigation is completed. Information from officers about what was going on in their heads during the shooting is still lacking because the officers have been on leave, according to the commissioner.
“I have concerns about many different aspects of how this case was handled.”
A Hamden PD officer speaks with an individual in violation of distracted driving.
(Photo: Sam Bashaw)
“Black Honda Pilot, AL, white male, texting, right hand, right lane.”
This is the call Captain Ronald Smith makes to four police officers a block away from his undercover position in front of the Hamden Plaza. Sergeant Gregg Curran, of the Hamden Police Department Traffic Division, slows down the traffic on Dixwell Avenue, pulls over the Honda Pilot driver and writes him a $150 ticket for texting while driving.
During the month of April the Hamden PD and the Connecticut Department of Transportation Highway Safety Office are partnering with the United States Department of Transportation for their national “U Drive — U Text — U Pay” campaign, according to a press release sent out by Hamden PD.
This means that a heavier police squad presence around town, namely at the intersection of Sherman and Whitney Avenues, in front of Hamden Plaza and the intersection of Whitney and Mount Carmel Avenues, will be watching and ticketing drivers utilizing their phones.
“(The campaign) is all throughout the state,” Smith said. “We regularly participate because our numbers and the amount of tickets we’ve given out have been enormous.”
The Hamden PD has been participating in the “U Drive — U Text — U Pay” campaign for several years and its most recent venture in August of 2018, produced more than 600 issued tickets in less than a month’s time.
“It’s been a constant flow,” Smith said of the number of cars his officers have pulled over in the first two hours of their four-hour shift. “(The no texting while driving law) has been on the books for several years and people just don’t abide by it and think it’s not a big problem.”
During the campaign, Hamden PD rotates two, four-hour shifts every day from Monday through Friday. One officer will dress in plain clothes as the ‘spotter,’ who inconspicuously radios a violation to a team of three to four officers in uniforms and police cars about a block or two down from the spotter’s location.
Each officer helping in the campaign is compensated in the form of overtime that comes from a grant provided by Connecticut Department of Transportation.
“The sad thing is that when we don’t have the grant we don’t have the manpower to enforce this specific law,” Smith said. “Officers on the street here have so many other things to do and they don’t have a lot of time to look for distracted driving, they’re going to calls and other things, accidents, etc…. Unfortunately, budgetary constraints and things like that make it difficult. (The grant) is nice because it doesn’t really affect the taxpayers in town.”
Andrew Tran, a 29-year-old from West Haven, was pulled over on April 15 while Smith and his team were doing checks.
“It sucks, but I wasn’t texting,” Tran said. “I was holding it, but I wasn’t using it, but I get why I was pulled over.”
Tran was unaware of the $150 ticket he would receive after getting caught. Under Connecticut’s cell phone and texting law, a second violation doubles to $300 and then to $500 for each subsequent offense, according to the Department of Transportation.
“I think a warning would’ve been nice,” Tran said. “I’ve never gotten stopped before so now I’m aware of it.”
However, Smith thinks that issuing warnings or reducing the fines would not be a smart decision.
“Obviously, the $150 ticket isn’t a deterrent enough,” Smith said. “(For example), if lawmakers decided that if you were to utilize the cellphone while driving, then your license would be suspended for three months or a short period of time.”
This solution wouldn’t solve all their problems, but Smith thinks it is one way to prohibit drivers from breaking the law repeatedly.
Marlo Wehrer, a 21-year-old Quinnipiac University athletic training major from Pequannock, New Jersey was pulled over on April 10 for texting while driving. She was stopped on the corner of Whitney and Mount Carmel Avenues, having no idea why she was getting pulled over.
“Literally between the time of me pulling out of North Lot and getting to the stop sign at New Road, supposedly there was someone there who had seen me on my phone,” Wehrer said. “When I kept driving toward the light, I thought there was an accident because so many cars were pulled over to the side, there were at least four or five cars already.”
Although she disagrees with her ticket, Wehrer will not go to court to petition it because she is from out of state and does not think the fine amount was unreasonable. “I was OK with it because it’s not a crazy amount of money,” Wehrer said. “I’ve heard people getting tickets that are much more expensive and as well, sometimes an event like this you would get points off your license, so I’m super thankful I didn’t get points off.”
Wehrer’s biggest quarrel with the “U Drive — U Text — U Pay” campaign is the location Hamden PD is choosing.
“I wouldn’t say that I am against (the campaign), but the fact that they’re sitting (near) a college campus; I feel like that’s kind of dumb,” Wehrer said. “Why are you attacking these kids who are paying so much money to go to that school anyway? We’re not just people who are working who have money to throw around like it’s nothing. So I think that’s messed up and I know a lot of people were upset by that and seeing how many people they had pulled over, they must have made so much money. It was crazy.”
However, Smith sees Quinnipiac students as a large demographic of distracted drivers in Hamden and pulling them over is keeping the public safer.
“For Quinnipiac students, a lot of them are on their phone,” Smith said. “I don’t know what their state laws are but I believe they’re the same, I’m certain. It’s quite a problem with Quinnipiac students and in the past there have been accidents and fatals; people crossing Whitney Avenue, not paying attention.”
Graphics: Aliza Gray
In 2007, Jennifer Herschkowitz, a Quinnipiac University freshman, was walking across Whitney Avenue and was fatally hit by a car while she was on her cell phone. For Smith, it’s not just about making sure the drivers are safe, but the pedestrians are too.
“We’ve been very vigilant about the campaign because it has affected our community,” Smith said. “I consistently read reports where distracted driving was the cause of an accident. A woman was crossing the street at one of our summer concerts last July and a distracted driver killed her. She had a family and kids.”
For Wehrer, getting a ticket has made her more aware of not touching her phone while driving.
“It definitely made a mark on me,” Wehrer said. “It’s a huge problem that people are texting and driving and you see awful things that occur with people being on their phone and getting in these crazy accidents. This definitely showed that to me, and I think other people would be the same way.”
Although the “U Drive — U Text — U Pay” campaign ends April 18, it will start up again at the beginning of August and continue for years to come, according to Smith. Smith’s advice for drivers is to simply obey the law and pull into a parking lot or off to the side of the road if they want to send a text, or even better, put their phone in the back seat of the car.
“There have been people who have been seriously injured and killed, families who have lost loved ones over something as stupid as responding to a text, and that’s very sad,” Smith said. “Our officers respond to scenes like that and it’s something you’ll never forget and it’s for what? To text someone that you’ll be there soon? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Curt Leng has been the mayor of Hamden for two and a half years. He was first elected in a special election in May 2015, then ran six months later. Now, he’s running for a third term. HQ Press sat down with Mayor Leng to discuss where he stands on certain issues as well as what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected.
What made you want to become mayor in the first place and why are you deciding to go up for re-election?
I’ve been involved with the town actually for 20 years now. I got involved when I was 20 years old and I ran for council as a 20 year old just coming out of high school, in college traveling back and forth from UConn. I didn’t win my first election that I ran as an independent candidate. And then two years later ran as a Democratic candidate and fortunately I’ve been winning ever since.
I got involved to begin with because actually in high school I had to do ten hours of work on a political campaign. So I went to the local person that was about a mile from my house and found that I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed digging into the issues that people were working on, both the neighborhood and debating them and the pros and the cons and really digging into it.
I learned quickly that you can get involved and you can and people will listen to you and people will you know appreciate the work that you do and you can actually get stuff done even when you’re not in office yet as long as you take that step and kind of open your mouth and get involved. And ever since then I’ve been on that track.
I like working to help people. I find this is one of the one jobs…that you can help somebody every single day. You know a call comes in–hey here’s a problem that I have– you can’t solve everything, there’s no question about that. But usually, several times a day, you’re able to help folks and I think that here at the local level, it’s kind of where the rubber hits the road. There’s things we can actually directly do pretty quickly to help people out.
So you’ve been in Hamden your whole life, correct?
I’m 43, I’ve lived here my whole life, except for when I was at school and my family has been here for a hundred years.
What are some of the initiatives you’ve been able to accomplish in the past two years that you are proud of?
A couple that I’m most proud of have been returning our police to walking beats and bicycle patrols–really focusing on community policing. We hadn’t had walking beats in probably forty years and we have our first walking beat that started two years ago and now we have two regular walking beats and we have 10 different bicycle patrols that go out in all different neighborhoods on the canal, on the shopping area.
Town finances is not necessarily an initiative but it’s one that we really focus on a lot and we’ve been able to strengthen the town’s finances quite a bit. Our bond rating has been upheld. We had the first budget without a tax increase in ten years this past year, so that took a lot of work and spent a lot of time with our delegation making sure that our our state funding is fingers crossed still coming through.
So finances would be number two and number three probably it’s not exactly a specific initiative but I think that there’s a community pride I feel is coming back and I think it’s coming from the ability to communicate more with local government with with I think it’s partly the mayor’s office and I think it’s partly the police department I think it’s partly council members having more interaction with people. And also having a lot more events that people get to go to.
Obviously this doesn’t come easily. What are some of the challenges you faced along the way?
I think every day is like pushing a boulder up a hill. Well, it goes back to finances probably is the main challenge because if the town’s finances aren’t good then it’s kind of the foundation in which everything else is built off of so if the finances are not doing well and if you’re not making sure that the pension is doing better than it was–we have pension reform that’s like three quarters of the way through we have to see that through the end–making sure that your spending is not out of control so that you can keep balancing budgets and keeping the taxes down, you know holding the line of taxes at least. Then you can’t do things like expand bicycle patrols and invest in sidewalks and streets. We’ve done a lot of infrastructure improvement.
In fact in the two and a half years years I’ve been mayor…we’ve paved thirty five miles of road in two and a half years.Fifty-six roads happening right now in the 2017 season and we’ve done probably about a mile of sidewalk so a lot it’s a lot of of infrastructure improvement. Even though we’ve got a lot of roads, I certainly know that we have a lot more to do.
Where would you say the relationship stands now between the town of Hamden and Quinnipiac?
Much improved. You know much, much stronger. I’ve been able to have regular communications with President Lahey. We meet, we talk, we text. Sometimes we’re both busy people and sometimes that ends up being the way that we can connect on certain things. So we have a regular communication now and that’s really nine tenths of the whole game, because if you’re communicating then you can say “hey I have a problem with this and this” or “hey can you help me out with this or this” and going both ways. I think its been a much better situation for everybody because nobody really wants bickering and fighting and and Quinnipiac is a great asset for the town globally. There’s problems with off campus housing sometimes yeah and it’s going to happen with any college in any town USA. Starting last year there was much better communication between our police and the campus security.
How do you facilitate balancing the needs of Quinnipiac students versus the needs of other residents in Hamden?
It’s tough. There’s no be easy black and white you know clear cut type of an answer on this one. You know, encouraging the university to build more housing where it’s fit and where people that will live in the units makes sense and you know there’s another two hundred or so beds that are going to be built up on York Hill which is good. That’ll get a certain number of people in and the truth is that it’s not all of the people off campus at all. It’s a small fraction that make it bad.
There’s many times that I talk with residents and I have someone say actually I students next door and they’re really nice and they came over and chatted and said hey if we have a little party or something on the weekend if it gets too loud would you be able to let me know…people learn how to live in a neighborhood and have a common courtesy for each other.
So it’s a balance of trying to figure out how you can have rules that are appropriate and legal that kind of incentivize locations that make more sense for student development period. So it’s a matter of trying to plan these things out and the more that you work I think with the neighbors, university, town, students together which we haven’t perfected yet; I think you’ll get better and better each year. Because other towns there’s always problems but other towns seem to have perfected it better than we have.
And I talked with folks from Fairfield University as an example and Sacred Heart and it seems like they had very very similar problems thirty years ago or twenty five years ago and you don’t hear much about it at all now so you know trying to follow those models I think is something that we need to spend more time on.
So is there anything you think maybe Quinnipiac can or should be doing differently or students in general?
I think it’s all of us have to really make a concerted effort to do a more formalized town gown committee commission and really commit to having faculty, students, government, residents participate in a positive way so it’s not just an airing of grievances. You know probably quarterly, I would think. And we’ve got kind of a framework of it and it’s something that I’d like to try to accomplish over the next over the next term if I’m still here.
Mayor Leng speaks with Hamden residents during his event titled ‘Mayor’s Night Out’
I went to your event Monday night and you had mentioned SeeClickFix. What are the people in the town of and then concerned about?
Traffic is definitely up there without question…we’ve been doing some traffic calming work so it’s physical improvements to roads. Beyond that, we’ve kicked up enforcement a lot. The enforcement this year compared to last year is we did about 500 enforcement actions in the summer of 2016 and summer of 2017 there was 1388, so almost tripled the number of enforcements and we’re in a bunch more locations with selective enforcement stopping and watching, people go through a light, speed trap, all those type of things.
Graffiti and dumping issues occur in any municipality. If you’re fast with them, then they don’t become a problem if you’re not, they do. So SeeClickFix can be a good tool for that.
Any place that you can kind of get information flow back from residents and from the government to the residents even if it’s not completely productive you know, it’s good. Because the more information flow, the better because people seem to get most frustrated when they don’t know what’s happening.
What do you think sets you apart from Salman Hamid and why do you think people should vote for you instead of him?
Record of accomplishment that they can actually look at and say okay has this person accomplished what he said he was going to and do I think that it’s a good amount of progress that I want to see this direction continue and see what happens with another couple of years of his team together.
And then I’ll probably say that experience. I’ve been involved in in government and I understand municipal finances and I have been involved with the many local and state laws that really do bind a lot of the things that we do some good and some constricting. And without knowing these things and having a pretty fluid comfortable handle on them, it would be really really enormously difficult to accomplish things.
And keeping things positive. I think right now there’s a positive vibe about the town and I think it’s important not only for people’s opinions and you know just being happy and proud of your hometown but it also has a value to it outside of Hamden in that if word gets out more I think as it is now that Hamden is a pretty good place to be for a variety of reasons then families are gonna want to invest here, and buy a house and business are going to want to come here and set up shop and it’s good for our local economy and there’s nothing bad about it. So you know, trying to keep promoting that you know the track that we’re on. I think we’re headed in the right direction is probably the simplest way to answer that.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and people from the Quinnipiac community, Hamden and the greater New Haven area are all doing something to help survivors.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month- 2 Hamden police cruisers will be displayed in pink patrolling the streets for the month of October. #bcampic.twitter.com/JuDnuGRXtM
Registration for the event starts at 9 a.m. and there will be an opening ceremony at noon, an hour before the walk starts.
So far, Strides has raised $50,976, with six days left to achieve their goal of $101,000.
Earlier in the semester, Quinnipiac hosted Relay For Life and raised more than $33,000 to fight cancer.
Lynn Aureli, a Quinnipiac student and cancer survivor, participated in this year’s Relay For Life. She has also been a part of other events, including Light the Night Walks for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
“I think Quinnipiac does do a good job helping the fight against cancer. We have Relay for Life, Saint Baldrick’s, and Bobcats Against Cancer. I also know there is a fraternity whose philanthropy is the American Cancer Society and the new sorority, Tri Delta’s philanthropy is Saint Judes,” said Aureli. “I think it would be a good idea for all of these organizations to come together for one big event to help the fight against cancer.”
One of Quinnipiac’s own Chartwells workers, Leyenda DaSilva, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and after being cancer free for two years, the disease returned and spread to her lymph nodes.
Quinnipiac junior, Becca Denning, created a GoFundMe page to help raise money for DaSilva, and successfully raised $2,062 in two months.
To help causes like DaSilva’s, click here and donate to Strides to make a difference in the battle to fight cancer.
PARENTS WEEKEND
One of Quinnipiac’s most active weekends, Parents and Family Weekend, is being held on Oct. 13 to 15.
The Toyota Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, Conn. will be hosting an exclusive concert for Quinnipiac students and their families on Friday at 8 p.m.
The performance will be “celebrating the fusion of classical music with classic rock features the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, five world-class vocalists and five top rock musicians,” according to an announement on MyQ. Tickets are going for $25 to $100 and you can purchase them here.
If you are looking for other activities, the New Haven Register has put out a list of 50 things to do in Connecticut this upcoming weekend, including:
The Greater New Haven Columbus Day Parade
The 31st annual Washington Antiques & Design Show
Florence Griswold Museum’s annual Wee Faerie Villages and Faerieville USA
Pumpkins on the Pier in Milford
The Portland Agricultural Fair
The Quantico Marine Corps Band concerts
“Peppa Pig’s Surprise” performance at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford
Lyman Orchards’ corn maze
Artspace’s City-Wide Open Studios
The Hops Company in Derby celebration of Oktoberfest
