Hartford is bringing back community policing, including three walking beats across the city.
“Community-based policing is going to be a core tenant of our public safety strategy,” Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, (D) Hartford, said during a press conference Friday at City Hall.
Arulampalam and interim Police Chief Kenny Howell said 20 officers will be redeployed to patrol communities.
That includes five officers who will walk beats along Albany Avenue, Park Street and Downtown.
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Howell said the department focused on areas with high crime or quality of life issues and could add more beats as staffing increases.
Civilian Police Review Board Chairman Eric Crawford is hopeful the changes can improve relationships with the city, noting officers were able to connect with people when they walked neighborhoods.
“Back in the day when you had the beat cops who walked the streets, got to know the grandmothers, the aunties and they sit on the stairs, they get a cup of Kool-Aid, maybe a sandwich,” he said. “They became part of the community.”
The department remains roughly 100 officers short of full force and some people question whether the redeployment will mean any change.
“How can you have community patrol when you don’t have enough man power or woman power?” Cornell Lewis, founder of the Self-Defense Brigade, asked.
Lewis’ group includes citizens who have armed themselves to police their neighborhoods. He said it started after residents became frustrated with the Hartford Police Department.
“There seems to be a disconnect between the police and the community and community activists are filling the void,” Lewis said.
Arulampalam hopes officers walking beats can help rebuild the department’s relationship with the city. He also said police-community relations are a problem nationwide, not just in Hartford.
“I would say it’s a national trend of a lack of connection,” he said.
Crawford thinks Hartford’s problems are local and not the result of a nationwide trend. Still, he’s confident things are moving in the right direction under a new mayor who is searching for a new permanent chief.
“Hartford is a little different,” Crawford said. “We're smaller and i think we have an ability to get things done faster.”
Arulampalam also announced an investigation into the filing of police reports after he and Howell noticed some reports were difficult to find.
The city is retaining the firm Shipman & Goodwin to look into the issue.
Arulampalam wouldn’t speculate on the problem, including whether reports are missing or if the issue was the result of filing mistakes.
Crawford said the city should focus on how to prevent the problem going forward.
“Instead of us going to look back at what has happened, let’s put some policies in place to make sure it doesn’t continue to happen,” he said.
