Thank you to the staff and City Clerk John Bazzano for composing this information, now if the City only had a decent website for people to easily view the information.
Say what you want about Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim. I know many of you would not or could not get over the idea of voting for a convicted felon. What we should have been thinking about is who had the leadership qualities to run our State.
Joe Ganim showed those leadership qualities tonight in one of the most gracious concession speeches I have ever seen. Rather than go negative, Ganim seemed to do a great job of urging Democrats to unite behind the parties nominee, even though the nominee refused to commit to supporting Ganim if he had won.
We could use someone like Joe Ganim to unify and lead our City.
A Hartford Police Officer , sitting in his cruiser at a traffic post at an Asylum Hill road closure, was attacked last night. The suspect, identified as , Devon Adams-Almstad, 7/24/98, 915 Asylum Ave. Hartford, CT threw the brick through the drivers side window of the marked cruiser, showering the officer with broken glass. The Hartford Officer sustained minor cuts from the incident.
After his capture, the suspect stated to Police " he hates cops and was targeting a white cop due to the recent events in the news"
Devon Adams-Almstad, 7/24/98, 915 Asylum Ave. Hartford, CT was charged with Criminal Mischief 1st, Assault on Police, Reckless Endangerment, Hate Crime, and Breach of Peace 2nd
Any of my regular readers already know that I fully support Law Enforcement. Some might say to a fault, but I think most people would also agree that I am fair in my support. I have posted both the good and the bad of actions by Hartford Police Officers.
Sergeant Steve Barone was a somewhat difficult call. Although I don't agree 100% with his tactics, mostly the "overtime" comment regarding the paperwork comment if he shot someone. His other comments I find less objectionable and recognize as a tactic to control a potentially dangerous situation.
Did he violate anyone Civil Rights? No. Was he discourteous to anyone in the vehicle? No, and actually he seemed to be quite professional in dealing with individuals in a car that , according to the confidential informant, had guns on them. Combine that with the fact that I am told two individuals fled from the car when Barone pulled up. Does anyone looking at this objectively think that possibly they might have been the subject of the CI's information and ran taking their guns with them.
It is also aggravating that Mayor Bronin is inserting himself in Police matters much more frequently lately. What was the reason for the hastily called meeting in the Mayor's Office Friiday morning and the press release later in the day. wouldn't it have served a better purpose for the Mayor and Council President to issue a statement that they heave full confidence in Chief Rosado and HPD to fully investigate the matter and wait for the final report. As another interference of Mayoral interference, should Bronin really be ordering HPD officers away from an ICE protest recently at the Federal building because the Police presence "looked bad" being live streamed on Facebook?
In this current climate, if there was no visible police presence and "alternative" protestors or white supremacists or whatever we are calling them these days happened to show up and ICE protestors were injured because there were no HPD presence, I can fully see Chief Rosado and HPD being thrown under the bus by Bronin. I doubt that he would stand in front of the media and take blame for his police meddling.
The attached video is actual Police Bodycam video with real cops facing real life and death daily issues.
Watch how fast these situations can go bad, especially when an officer is by himself or herself. And listen to the officer in the bodycam video when he approaches the suspects in the car that he believes have guns on them. At one point he tells the suspect to keep his hands in sight or listen at 1:41 as the Officer says "I will blow your f***ing brains out" He didn't mention his itchy trigger finger or the overtime for reports if he had to shoot them, but maybe he should have because they eventually pulled a gun on the officer and he returned fire and shot them. And he probably wasn't suspended either, except for the shooting investigation
Police work is not always pretty and requires quick judgments by our Officers to hopefully go home at the end or their shift alive. As Sergeant Barone assessed the situation do you think he was gullible enough to believe the story that the people were in front of the property at 10:00pm for a potential real estate transaction on the abandoned property. Or do you think maybe he was seeing the red flags for people parked in high crime and high drug traffic area reportedly with guns in their possession
situations.
Considering the number of guns Sergeant Barone and other HPD Officers take off our streets everyday, I for one am not opposed to a little subterfuge or whatever you want to call it to maintain
control of a situation
Or does our Mayor and Council President (and some media reporters) expect our officers to have to wait to see the muzzle flash and the red hot lead hitting their bullet proof vests before they act.
Would that be the more polite thing to do?
I will hopefully be posting real bodycam video regularly so people can actually see what goes on during these high stress situations and gain a better understanding of what goes on out in our streets
As a note, HPD bodycams should be in use by October.
THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED ON THIS BLOG ARE STRICTLY THAT, MY OPINIONS.After getting fed up with the lack of openness in Hartford City Hall, I decided to begin a program on Hartford Public Access Television called "WE THE PEOPLE". Through tips received we have been able to expose numerous issues that the Perez Administration would prefer to keep quiet.
Any information received is kept in strict confidence, feel free to e-mail me at krbrookman@earthlink.net or call me at 860-883-2297 with any information.