Friday, October 25, 2019

THE PERFECT STORM



The perfect storm.That is how Hartford Police Officer Dom Agostino described yesterdays events on Westland Street. Officer Agostino called me this morning to describe his actions to me after numerous comments had been made on this Blog critiquing his actions during the incident.

I have never met Agostino, but I was aware of who he was due to an Internal Affairs investigation regarding him from several years ago.  That may have been a bad start when I began hearing he was the officer who first arrived  on Westland Street yesterday to an active shooter scene.

Agostino asked if he could talk to me and address his response. Since I( am still trying to unravel the situation in my own mind, combined with the numerous phone calls I have received with all  of the different theories and scenarios as to how it should have been handled in a perfect situation.

The problem is nothing about yesterdays incident was routine or complying with any Academy role playing scenario.

Agostino seemed to be troubled by all of the events, but then again, who wouldn't be. He said he hadn't been able to get much sleep last night as the slow motion events kept playing over in his mind.

Agostino described it as the "perfect storm" for chaos. He heard the shots fired call, responded to the area and as he turned onto Westland street he saw two SUV's racing directly toward him. He said the front seat occupants of one car were wearing masks and one of the SUV's threw that car into reverse to elude him and backed up Westland Street. The scene was unraveling in split second timing at that point and Agostino was trying to comprehend everything in the greater picture and making sense of a senseless situation.

Agostino , driving forward up Westland St. was pursing the second shooting vehicle as it backed up the street quickly. At about the time he saw the grey car at the curb with two more shooters taking aim at the fleeing SUV. In a split second he saw the subsequent victim, later identified as Yvonne Smith, entering the street into the path of the fleeing car.

He explained the couple of seconds we can see in the video where he is stationary alongside the standing shooters. At that moment the fleeing vehicle hit Yvonne Smith and propelled her body into the air and through the intersection .Agostino recalls quickly looking from the flying body to the shooters along side him, trying to process what to do next. A situation hopefully none of us are ever in and having to witness and make those decisions and hopefully none of our trained police officer's have to either.

I know it is easy to criticize Agostino's actions, I did it myself. I am not sure even a computer or the best trained Police Officer could process the events that quickly and make the perfect decision. I had the  video on a computer screen and it took me several views to make sense of the silver vehicle by the curb and the two occupants going into their shooting stances and figuring all the threats out. Imagine a Police officer coming upon a wildly confusing situation unwinding in real time before your eyes and trying to control that situation perfectly while analyzing everything happening, trying to chase the suspects, not crash your cruiser, not get yourself shot and if you return fire not to injure any innocent bystanders out in the area. As you human brain is processing all of that information , you see a body hurled into the air by the fleeing car.

I am not sure even the fastest computer could analyze all of that information and come up with a perfect scenario in the quick time frame  that Agostino had to make the same conclusions .I am not sure it is necessary, but I would love to sit down in a room with people, or even a group of Police Officers and play the video for them and see how they would process their solutions and the "what if's". Hopefully this will be a learning tool for our Police Officers to prepare them for the next time a similar situation occurs. And sadly I think the next time will not be too far off unless we get a handle of the violence on our streets.

Finally, I think I did look at the video and drew conclusions as to the situation based upon my knowledge of previous incidents with Officer Agostino. This was a perfect storm situation and I am not sure even the most seasoned, well trained officer could have or should have acted differently. And I honestly pray that none of my police officer friends, or any police officer find themselves in similar situations.  And I don't think I have ever done this before or actually felt the need to do it, but to Officer Agostino, I apologize for judging your actions in the comfort of my computer screen hit play rewind and pause reviewing the video in slow motion, unlike what you were confronting in split second real time.

I appreciate your calling me and having the opportunity hear your version and your sincerity seemed to come through for me. I hope your department will help you and other officers dealing with similar situations to process these events properly.

Before we were done, I asked Officer Agostino a question and told him if he didn't want to answer me I understood. I asked him as the scene was unfolding, did he ever  stop to think or delay his response because of liability or what would happen if he fired back or even rammed the car with his cruiser . His response was a quick "No".

13 comments:

  1. Since I’ve now been programmed by the media and internet to keep score ,,,,,, DOES ANYONE KNOW THE SKIN COLOR OF THESE CRIMINALS? It seems that this most important piece of information has not been released.

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  2. just wondering, why does that matter? would it make a difference, Yvonne Smith is still dead

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  3. What you should have asked was.......Dom, did you not shoot and engage as you should have because you knew you’d be taken off the street for an extended period of time and not be able to work all your PJ’s. Let’s keep it 100 here.

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  4. in talking to him, I seriously doubt PJ's even entered his mind during all this

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  5. Very true statement by you. You seldom apologize and you always judge cops, sometimes without all of the facts and with no consideration for a person's family or the aftermath that ensues afterwards because your "sometimes" slanted views fuel the fires of the anonymous cowards who would normally never have a face to face with the cops and fireman you feel you're qualified to judge, insult and harass with your platform. I'm sure if anyone offered you an opportunity for a "backroom meeting" you would decline or call one of your cop buddies to bail you(rescue) out and jam them up. Typical for anyone who hides behind a keyboard and promulgates incendiary information.

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  6. 1;57pm

    "Typical for anyone who hides behind a keyboard and promulgates incendiary information".

    Isn't that what you just did? At least I gave Officer Agostino the chance to tell me his side and I posted that under my own name along with my apology, can you say the same?

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    1. You know why cops and fireman post anonymously. The toxic environments that you love posting about are homes of some of the most vindictive people on earth. You can post freely with no repercussions. And you know that's the truth.

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  7. Let's place the blame where it truly belongs on this unsupportive atmosphere that has been created by this current command staff. Us officers are well aware that we will not be supported and are afraid to take appropriate action on the street. I am sure that bits of this raced through Doms mind as that shooting unfolded causing him to hesitate. A track record of punishing officers involved in any OIS has been clearly apparent over the last year. The officers involved in the South Whitney Street OIS are banned from working certain areas of the city and have been given strict orders to not be in the same cruiser under any circumstances. This is no secret either as Lantern announced it during a roll call some weeks back for us all to hear embarrassing one of the officers. All officers in any way shape or form involved in the 84 OIS have been transferred from their position since. We all know the only reason the two detectives have not is because it's well known they would never go quietly. The detectives have way to much experience and time on the job to allow that to happen. The result of all this lack of support is what we see now a city in crisis with uncontrollable gun violence. Time to leave Dom alone and take a look at the bigger picture of what is happening here.

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  8. All the officers mentioned in said comment are great cops who have been negatively impacted by doing their jobs and doing them cleanly and well. You don’t think we see that? No leadership. Bring back spongebob 🧽 nice vid on fox61 tonite Mr Brockman!!! Thody going down ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ Punish everyone thody. Like middle school. Joke

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  9. If we do a small rewind to the spring when the OG street crimes guys (Hebert, Chanaca, Gashi, Herman, Taylor, Duarte) and Fallon/Kearney B squad crew were in the north end every night, crime was at its lowest ever. In fact, a source in the complex who has since retired stated “Thody’s putting on his resume lowest crime rates ever.” Then Thody and inner circle messed everything up cause they can’t lead and they have no experience. All the sudden VIN started going sideways, And officers began being punished for proactive work. I’m not saying those names prevented the violence but when you put quality people in the right spots there’s a significant impact. Now Hebert is being punished (involved in OIS on 84), Rocky Last shipped back to patrol after a traumatic incident. Chanaca gone. Fallon south permanent, Kearney north. Chris White / Bodner birdied in the academy. Don’t you see that you’re showing officers that they’ll be punished if their name is in the news? All above officers did their job and what they were trained to do, shame on you all command staff. You’re breeding laziness and you’re scaring our employees into not taking action if need be. Dom isn’t the issue, the precedent that Thody and Bowsza and Medina have set is the issue.

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  10. Leak,

    There is a time and a place for everything. I am very disappointed in Fox 61 for airing the video, but that is the nature of tabloid journalism and apparently viewers love the drama. I didn't see what they aired but I heard about it. That video was being widely distributed almost within minutes of the incident and I had several more copies sent to me through out the night. At one point I received still shots of the first responding officer kneeling over the dead woman body to prove to me the officer did render first aid. I chose not to post those photos out of respect for the woman's family. I know another local television station had the full version of the incident that I received, body flying through the air and everything. luckily they showed the decency, as did I, not to be first and put the gruesome video out. For Chief Thody to order that all of the video be shut down and the camera access to all officers be shut down is borderline insanity. Officers use that video access numerous times daily for criminal investigations as well as accidents and other things and to now remove that tool from them is ridiculous. It makes no sense to build a multi million dollar network and then act like a ten year old and take your toys home when you don't like how things are going. I am told the video server didn't even log who accesses files, who are we paying to build these systems, they clearly have no clue about system security if there is no user log of who is going into your systems. Leaks happen , deal with it. I am often the beneficiary of some of those leaks but I also have called Chief Thody, Chief Medina or LT Cicero many times to make sure the information I have been given would not damage an ongoing investigation, and numerous times I have held back on information until it wouldn't damage a case.

    Chief Thody and his command staff need to learn to manage and not just react. That is what they are paid for, if they are unsure how to, or unwilling to manage , they should be replaced

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    1. Do you really think Thody is remotely concerned with officers being able to use video in real time to assist them in criminal investigations, apprehending criminals, accidents and other things? Obviously not by the looks of things. The city is in the worst shape it’s ever been in.

      The Thody motto- Punish everyone for my own failures and lack of leadership qualities.

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  11. Kevin, props to you for listening to Dom and admitting you were wrong to judge him so quickly. Too many times people judge what a police officer does or does not do in a high stress situation such as this from the comfort of their computer screen. I am also glad Dom reached out to you to tell you what a shit-show he drove in to. It could have been much worse for him and other bystanders. Dom IS an experienced police officer, like him or hate him, that is not the issue. Finally, for the other "anonymous cop posters" who said they would have done this or they would have done that and fired back and killed all the bad guys, blah, blah, blah....stop it. You would have been too busy sh*tting yourself and crying for your mommy. Dom would never back away from a fight!

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