Ask East Haven's Police Chief: Answers to April's Questions

[Editor's Note: On the first Monday of each month, we'll be asking residents to post their questions for East Haven Interim Police Chief Brent Larrabee in the comments section. Questions can also be emailed to askthechief@easthavenpolice.com. We then pick four questions for the chief to answer. Below are responses.]

Q: Chief can you explain why patrol cars are rairly seen in Morgan Point. Officers pass through about three times a week and are out of the area in minuets. When I was a youth cars were assigned to each area of the town and would only leave the area if they got a call. We got to know our officer and it truly helped with crime in the area. How will you organize patrols.

A: The department currently has officers assigned to different sections of town. Each section of town is comprised of main travel routes, businesses and residential areas. Officers do patrol all areas of town, however, the actual patrol time is dictated by call volume, time spent on calls and staffing.

We are currently in the process of hiring more officers to help with the staffing issues. We have installed e-ticket in ten of the department’s vehicles. Once they are operational it will result in officers spending less time on the actual motor vehicle stops and leaving him/her more time for other duties.

In the future, I will attempt to have officers assigned to an area on a regular bases.I believe, like you, the familiarity of the officer to the neighborhood and the neighborhood to the officer is a key component to effective policing.

Q: Chief, As you are aware, hundreds of undocumented immigrates are driving down Main St and other parts of town with no insurance and no license. My mother was rear ended on frontage Rd last year by one. Is this problem going to continue to be addressed or ignored due to political pressure? I once read East Haven police issued 1000 tickets for No License in past years. What else can be done to get unlicensed, unregistered and uninsured vehicles off the road way?

A: Unfortunately, there are people, both citizens and undocumented immigrants, who drive without a license or have their vehicles unregistered or uninsured. Our officers continue to look for motor vehicle violations as well as any criminal activity while on patrol. If anyone is found not to have a license, vehicle registration or insurance, they will be charged accordingly and the vehicle will be towed, if needed.

Q: Good moorning Chief. With your department being depleted with retirements and with the issue of the other 4 not soon to be resolved your department, mainly the uniform patrol division, will be severly short staffed. With this serious OT must be spent just to cover minimum needs. So, my question is, seeing it take months into over a year sometimes to put together a class of recruits, gets them into and out of an acadamy, and in house rookie status, why isn't the pool of already certified officers within the state, and there is a list as you know, that can be brought in, do what ever in service training is required and get the patrol unit back to strength? Save time and especially money. Good luck. By the way, I have been retired WAY to long from the NHPD (detective) otherwise I would re-join.

A: The department is currently in the testing process administered by the South Central Criminal Justice Association. Potentially, we will be hiring candidates from this process to attend academy classes scheduled for July and October. This process does take some time. The training period takes approximately one year before a new officer can work by themselves. However, with the support of the Mayor, we are developing a new hiring procedure for certified police officers that will be administered by our department in conjunction with the Town’s Civil Service Commission. Certified police officers are those who have already been trained and certified by the Connecticut Police Officer Standards and Training Council. This will give the department opportunities to recruit experienced officers and have them ready for patrol at a much faster pace.

Q: Will there be a police presence down the beach this year? One annoyance in EH that I have found when walking my dog, is whenever there is a football, baseball, soccer game at the High School, many cars are parked in the handicapped areas without a handicap tag, and obviously the people getting out of the cars do not have a handicap. For instance, this past Sunday there was a group of people playing baseball, and pick up trucks are parked on the grass. It would be nice to see a patrol car go through and enforce the parking laws.

A: We are presently down officers and are expecting several more officers to retire before this July. At this time, having someone assigned exclusively to the beach would not be feasible. The beach is part of the patrol area of the officer assigned to the shore area. We will monitor the beach area daily and if there is a need, an officer will be assigned. That decision will be made on a case by case analysis based on the workload for that day.

The parking issue will be directed to the Captain of the Patrol Division for his attention.