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Tuesday, June 9, 2020

THE WAKE-UP CALL FOR POLICE ADMINISTRATORS

Anyone whos has seen or heard of the George Floyd video should be rightfully appalled. There are most likely many such incidents that don't result in deaths or are not  recorded, that occur many times each day.

As long as we hire human beings as Police Officers, we will see some bad behavior. We probably don't hear very often about the things great Police Officers do every day, but that's the nature of the beast.

Sadly, I think any Police Chief or Police supervisor worth their salary, knows immediately who their problem Officer's are. The real question is what have they done to curtail their problems and address bad behavior before it escalates.

 The problem is many Chief's and supervisors are unwilling to deal with the consequences of taking bad Police Officer's head on before the next George Floyd.

Police Union's have become more about protecting bad officer's and winning their job's back than in actually looking out for the good officers and protecting them

The "no snitching" mentality is alive and well in just about every Police Department. Good cops, for whatever resaon tend to cover for "bad " cops. Its just the nature of the culture and good Officers who do go beyond and report bad behavior, usually find themselves as the outcasts because they reported a bad cop.

Last summer I received calls from Officer's about an incident on a Northend street. When I asked to see the body cam footage of the incident, I was told by two high level HPD officers that the officer's in question "left the office and forgot their body cameras" Now isn't that convenient, and what discipline or corrective action was eventually taken to make sure it doesn't happen in the future? None is the most likely answer.

I have had conversations with many Police Chief's and high level supervisors regarding bad behavior by Officer's and there seems to be a common theme when dealing with problem Officers...Police Union's and bad Labor Board decisions.

One Police Chief told me he didn't want to terminate a bad Officer, with well documented racist behavior, because he didn't want to face the officer in the hallway in 2 years when the Labor Board would order him to hire the officer back.

Recently HPD was ordered to hire a detective back after he was terminated as the result of his DUI arrest and his well documented racist tirade, repeatedly using the "N" word during his arrest, all caught on dashcam and bodycam in real time.

Where is it acceptable to now assign a documented racist Officer? Is he only a racist whwn he is drunk?

 What about the racist Sergeant who was recently returned to the streets as a supervisor  after he was documented previously referring to Hartford's African American men as "Gorilla's in the mist". Did he serve enough time in  the bowels of HPD in the booking Department that he relinquished his racist viewpoints? Did assigning him to the Southend  ensure he can't exercise his racist behavior. I sure hope so because that is the last thing we need right now and no one can come back and say "geez, what a surprise, we never knew"

Or do we just wait until the next time he has a bad day and boils over in a racist rant? There is too much riding on the Public's trust of Police Officers to allow, or even risk,  continued bad behavior.

It doesn't serve anyone's best interest and it may require Legislative change to address the options.Again, Police Officers are human, but maybe the Legislature should require a Labor decision that keeps them employed, but maybe not in a Police capacity. Somerwhere in a Office is the basement of City Hall might work, with limited public contact.

We also need to do a lot more for mental health support for Officers who see things everyday that no human being should have to see or deal with. It is no wonder some officer's eventually "snap", or worse. Supervisors need to be much more in tune with identifying problems and risk factors and not be afraid or intimidated to address these issues.

More on this in the future. This can't be the dirty little secret that no Police Chief wants to address. It is out in the open now, deal with it and work to fix it. Denial now is futile.

Friday, May 29, 2020

IS THIS A "LEADER"?


The screenshot above is a posting apparently from the personal Facebook page of Connecticut's Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz posted earlier this week. I don't think I need to comment much on this except to say it shows a total disregard for the Constitutional and First Amendment rights of his constituents to express themselves. 

 As the saying goes,"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it"

 Apparently the Speaker doesn't agree with that and wished harm , and possibly death, on Connecticut residents that expressed their displeasure with the States handling of the Covid 19 Pandemic.

Whether meant as serious or off the cuff remarks, Aresimowicz should be disgusted with himself for such a lack of any display of leadership and showing a total disregard for human life.

Even though some Democrats take every opportunity to tear down President Trump and discredit him, some of them sound more and more like Trump every day , Aresimowicz included.

Isn't it about time we demand leaders that actually lead by example?

 The comment was eventually removed from Aresimowicz's Facebook page and replaced with a half hearted apology.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP, WHAT'S THE TRUTH?

I was a little surprised yesterday to read media reports that Connecticut Senator Len Fasano was being stonewalled by Governor Lamont in his request for the Boston Consulting Group's recent contract with the State of Connecticut.

I wonder why?

I also wonder why Governor Lamont thinks that he can operate in secrecy when spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money under the guise that we are in an emergency.

Corrupt activities are corrupt whether during normal times or during a pandemic emergency. Regardless, they should be open to public scrutiny either way.

 Through a source at the Capitol, I was able to obtain the contract that apparently the Governor's Office was afraid to or unwilling to share with Senator Fasano.

My source also told me that people should be looking into how the contract was issued and which person on the Governor's reopening committee has ties to Boston Consulting and apparently worked for them at one point.



Friday, May 15, 2020

A GREAT RETURN ON THEIR INVESTMENT

Earlier this week, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont seemed to reluctantly answer a question from a NBC Connecticut reporter when he acknowledged the contract to Boston Consulting Group. The contract was for $2 million dollars for Boston Consulting to guide the State of Connecticut through "re-opening" the State.

Didn't the Governor put together a panel of so-called "experts" to guide the re-opening goals. To the best of my knowledge, these experts all volunteered their time to spearhead these efforts and didn't cost us anything, let alone $2 million dollars.

I have to ask what expertise Boston Consulting has in this area since the pandemic is unprecedented and no one has expertise in uncharted territory. It seems to me as though Boston Consulting will be receiving on the job training from taxpayers of the State of Connecticut. It also makes me ask why none of the high priced State of Connecticut staff members couldn't manage this, since they most likely have as much experience as Boston Consulting in pandemic response.

I guess the answers may lie in the website opensecrets.org, a website that follows campaign donations. Open secrets lists  the Boston Consulting as a major donor to Democratic campaign operations. Here is their report on Boston Consulting and their donations, https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals?id=D000032055.

Apparently Boston Consulting is willing to hedge their bets. The report lists their donations to Democrat's campaign at roughly 80.58% ($244,279 for 2020) of their dollars, they were willing to also donate to Republican candidates totaling 19.42% ($58,874) for 2020.

It doesn't seem like a bad investment, sprinkle around some campaign contributions and get a $2 million dollar contract in the process. It's just too bad Lamont couldn't find a Connecticut company to help.

Monday, March 30, 2020

CIVILITY AND SOME STUPIDITY IN THE AGE OF CORONA

Our society, the last few weeks , to me, seems to have an eerie similarity to the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our Country.

People actually seem to be civil toward each other, good deeds are obvious everywhere and people actually seem to be caring about their neighbors. You can actually be slow to proceed at a green light without the car behind you leaning on their horn.Civility. Why can't we be like this everyday? Even when we aren't facing a pandemic.

W have an elderly family friend who lives alone and she was unable to find toilet paper last week. Me and Mom dropped an eight pack off to her  home. We told her we didn't want any potential exposure so we would leave it on her back porch. She called later to ask how much we wanted and we told her nothing. You would think we gave her a winning Lotto ticket.

I think it made us both feel good. Our friend in knowing that someone she could count on actually was thinking about her and us knowing we did something good, even as small of a gesture as it was.

As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unnoticed, we have received much more back this week than any toilet paper could cost. Neighbors have plenty of free time now and the homemade soups, baked goods, potato salad and much more has been making it's way to our doorstep.  The deliveries are usually prefaced with a phone call asking if we are home and can they leave something for us on the porch.

The doorbell rang the night before Saint Patrick's Day. It was a neighbor who had to cancel her weekend St. Patrick Day party and she showed up with a full corned beef and some vegetables she couldn't use. Mom cooked it and we packaged up Corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots dinners for several other elderly people who were home with the restaurants closed. They were all packaged up and set on  the back porch for pickup. We maintained our social distance,

Today, another neighbor came over to get some of the Irish Bread we baked this weekend, she was carrying Banana bread and a container of potato salad she made for us. We will be baking more, but our grocery delivery with buttermilk won't come until Friday (sorry)

Although the pandemic may be the worst thing many of us will probably experience during our lifetimes it seems to be bringing out the best in many people. I wish, and hope, we can smarten up and continue the civility after this is done.

I only wish that the people that are supposed to be our so called "leaders" would forget the political sniping and start leading by example. That goes for everyone, from our President on down , including our 2 US Senators. There will be plenty of time when all is said and done to figure out who, if anyone, dropped the ball on a situation that no one could have predicted 12 months ago.

 I do have to say though that Governor Lamont appears to be showing some leadership and pulling State resources together and playing very little politics with this disaster. I think Governor Lamont would be well served to continue on the course he has set and resist allowing anyone to hijack his press conferences for their own political gain as was done last week by Senators Blumenthal and Murphy . We all are well aware of their disdain for President Trump, in the meantime people are dying and many more will potentially die while they further their political hatred.

And this pandemic also highlights the stupidity of many people also. I am sure we all, or at least most of us with any common sense, were appalled by the news coverage of "spring breakers" swarming the beaches in Florida, some how figuring they were immune because they were in College and partying. Also the ignorance of Florida's Governor, who waited almost a week before taking action to stop the reckless behavior by closing the beaches.

Most likely out of fear of offending business owners who receive substantial financial benefit from the drunken spring break revelers in their bars and clubs Unfortunately, many of those college partiers are now testing positive and suffering from the Corona virus.

I think another example of Corona stupidity is the testing and reporting of Corona cases in the news. The number of infections reported and the hospitalizations reported are partially due to the low number of initial test results and now that it has been ramped up and more results are received daily the numbers seem to double and triple almost daily. I think those infections were there all along, they are just getting identified and reported on a more timely basis .

TO BE CONTINUED...


Thursday, March 5, 2020

6TH DISTRICT TOWN COMMITTEE RESULTS

The 6th District Democratic Town Committee elections were held Tuesday.

 For the most part , the existing current members of the 6th District slate prevailed and the two challenge slates pretty much went down in flames. One slate was led by Council President Maly Rosado with far less than stellar results.

 Roughly less than 10% of eligible Democratic voters in the 6th District turned out to vote.

 There must be a better way. These DTC challenges are a huge waste of money spent by a cash strapped City. Essentially by people looking for some political power and a title.

 They might actually accomplish more by getting out in their communities and neighborhoods and producing some real results