I guess you might as well ride the wave to your benefit while you can.
Several sources are confirming that another complaint regarding working conditions for female employees at the Hartford Police Department is about to be dropped on the City Hall HR Director's desk.
This follows at least one credible sexual harassment (Baerga) that is being dealt with and a second complaint by a scorned employee (Gentry) transferred out of a coveted Community Service Officer position for her lack of productivity. After he transfer, she cooked up a sexual harassment, (oh yeah, allegedly) complaint against a Captain who had nothing to do with the decision to transfer her. The decision was actually made by a newly promoted Lieutenant who evaluated all of the Officer's under her command and found that Officer Gentry was dead wood and producing very sparse results for the area she was assigned to. A female Lieutenant by the way, not that that matters.
So when you can't argue with the facts and the statistics that your work performance is abysmal, do the next best thing and cry "Sexual Harassment". Hell, go back fifteen years if you have to, someone might believe you.
Now notice, I am not mentioning the first complaint because in my opinion that complaint has validity and I think it is being dealt with appropriately.(Even though Officer Baerga has refused to cooperate with IAD investigators charged with investigating the matter) I understand the agenda and the objective in play here. A relatively new Police Chief is in place and making structural changes that a handful of people don't appreciate. So you have to destroy the Chief and his administration at all costs. And what better way than to ride the sexual harassment wave that almost kept a Supreme Court Justice from being confirmed.
Cry Sexual Harassment, and whether it is legit or not, people will pay attention. The Union leadership will be making a beeline for every Newsroom
in the area willing to listen, dumping documents fitting of a Wikileaks breach
, and your agenda to discredit a Chief you refuse to work with will gain mileage. Who is willing to take the heat challenging a phony complaint? Especially when it involves something as sensitive as sexual harassment.
Well, I will. Let me be the first to yell bullsh*t on the next complaint being written now to ride the wave.
The next complaint, from what I am being told, is being typed by Lieutenant Christine Mertes and most likely relates to her claims of HPD being a hostile work environment.
Mertes recently was passed over for a promotion to Captain. Not because she is a female. Not because of anything other than the fact she is incompetent and not suited for a position of leadership. Mertes was recently disciplined for a Facebook post where she was clearly identified as a Hartford Police Officer and made some very sexist/sexual remarks in a post on her page.
Originally when Mertes was questioned bout the matter, allegedly she claimed that her Facebook page had been "hacked" then owned up to her behavior after IAD conducted an investigation
Mertes was also removed as the Commander of the Hartford Police Academy by former Chief James Rovella and transferred back to patrol after Rovella became aware of numerous sexual harassment complaints made against Mertes to other supervisors. Complaints made by both male Academy recruits and male instructors in the Academy. These actions apparently took place in the confines of the Academy as well as in Public Places such as Bushnell Park, On at least one occasion Mertes was reportedly overheard by members of the public addressing recruits and referring to erect male body parts as she was yelling at recruits.
Apparently according to complaints, it was also a regular occurrence for Mertes to be seen in the halls at the Academy wearing only her bra and panties. Yes, you read that right, and it has nothing to do with funding and not being able to supply uniforms to Mertes.
I think you get the picture by now, so I will stop with the details. But this is what Chief Rosado is dealing with and trying to break a culture that is now rearing its ugly head. Are there problems at HPD ? Absolutely. But change is never easy and as long as this nonsense is allowed to continue, nothing will change and most likely it will get worse.
I am pretty sure the plan by the handful of malcontents is to discredit Rosado, Medina and Thody to the point that they are removed, at which point it will be back to business as usual. Under that scenario the malcontents win and we will only see HPD become more dysfunctional. Change is never easy. I am sure Chief Rosado knew that when he took the job. Every day now and with every negative, nonsensical complaint it should become more obvious to the people and "leadership" of Hartford that there is clearly an agenda in play here and we can't allow that agenda to succeed.
Is Chief Rosado perfect? No. Is it easy to come in and turn a ship around before hitting the iceberg? No but it takes a Captain at the helm to steer us through the iceberg ridden sea, Chief Rosado with the team he has built is the right person to have on the bridge steering the ship and we need to support him to stay off the planned mutiny of the malcontents.
