In 2010 and early 2011, the City of Hartford was plagued with gun violence, very similar to today's wave of violence
At the time , then Governor Dannel Malloy called his then Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane to the Capitol. During their meeting, Governor Malloy's instructions to Kane were simple. Malloy's instructions were "Do something about the crime in Hartford".
Kane's next move seemed to make a lot of sense. He moved his Chief Inspector from his office to organize and oversee the efforts, as instructed by the Governor.
Rovella quickly formed the "Shooting Task Force " and the results were almost instantaneous. Arrests were being made for shootings, and cases that were being left unsolved were suddenly resulting in arrests and violent criminals were being taken off the streets of the Capitol region.
I am probably over simplifying this, but Rovella's philosophy was simple. In order for Law Enforcement to be successful, they had to come out of their "silos" and share information and work together for a common goal, to combat gun violence.
This required communication and collaboration to get the results both the Governor and Rovella wanted.
Rovella's plan wasn't rocket science, but it definitely was creative and unusual for Law Enforcement. Rovella brought numerous agencies into his plan to all work together. HPD, surrounding suburban Police Agencies, Connecticut State Police, State's Attorney Inspectors, a Prosecutor from the Court to specifically follow prosecutions, State probation and Parole officers and numerous Federal partners such as DEA, ATF and FBI.
One of the biggest components of Rovella's plan was communication and accountability. If someone was lucky to get invited inside the Shooting Task Force offices it quickly became apparent why the operation was working. The data exchanged and "connecting the dots" to criminals and potential shooters was obvious. A back hallway connecting offices had dozens of pictures posted of persons suspected with volent gun crimes and how they were all connected together. Hartford is a relatively small City and most volent crime is committed by a very small percentage of persons. Tracking those persons and predicting their moves produced huge results
Rovella's plan was so productive, that his efforts were replicated in other Connecticut cities such as New Haven and New Britain with similar results.
The current administration doesn't seem to understand the problem or how too fix it. Rather , they seem to buy into the latest trend pushed by college academics with little or no results. One example is the "evidence based policing" which Thody and Bronin have seemed to buy into because someone's friend pushed it as plausible and landed a consulting contract in the process. Evidence based policing has been a failure in Hartford and the current crime stats show that.
People are being shot in Hartford, almost daily and at least 8 people have been murdered in the first few weeks of the new year. The ever dwindling numbers of Hartford Police Officers is going to make for a very difficult summer if things continue on as is.
It is long overdue for the time for Mayor Bronin to show some leadership and institute plans to bring accountability and solutions to Hartford's violent crime problem. If Bronin is incapable of making the tough decisions. it might just be time for Governor Lamont to have the conversation with his Public Safety Commissioner , James Rovella to "do something about the crime in Hartford". It worked in 2011 and the time is right to give it a shot again under Rovella
