YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE CITY HALL. THE BAERGA TIMELINE IS COMING OUT

Hartford City Hall has been pretty silent over the sexual harassment complaint by Hartford Officer Kelly Baerga. There may very well be a good reason for it.

Part of it may be the unspoken support for the alleged  abuser, Hartford Police Sergeant Andrew Rodney. Rodney is also a member of the Hartford Democratic Town Committee from the 7th District, as well as a visible supporter for the re-election of Mayor Luke Bronin.

THE FULL BAERGA COMPLAINT MEMO IS BELOW AT THE END OF THIS POST

Although some, including LGBTQ activists, are attempting to portray the Hartford Police Department as a "toxic" environment, unsafe for female employees, the documents portray a different picture. The heavily redacted documents obtained by We the People through a Freedom of Information request paint a timeline for Baerga's complaint, much different  than we would be led to believe by City Hall..

Officer Baerga is also HPD's liaison to the LGBTQ community,

The heavily redacted documents  will be the subject of an FOI complaint I am filing challenging the City's claim that the redactions are legal, but in the interest of revealing information now, I am posting the heavily redacted pages.

Although we have been led to believe that HPD sat on Baerga's complaint for over half a year and did nothing, that is not true and the dated documents prove that is untrue.

Baerga's complaint was originally made to her supervisor , Lt. Paul West on or about May 28, 2018. Almost immediately Chief David Rosado instructed IAD Lt. Brandon O'Brien to open an immediate investigation into Baerga's allegations

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In addition, the alleged abuser, Sergeant Andrew Rodney was immediately transferred out of the Recruiting Division to avoid contact with Officer Baerga. This was carried out by an order from Assistant Chief Ralph Medina on the same day he was made aware of the allegations. Medina's transfer order was carried out through an internal e-mail sent by Sgt. Brian Bowsza

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Due to some strange City policy, the Baerga investigation was taken away from the trained investigators at the HPD Internal Affairs Division as Chief Rosado had ordered and instead was turned over to Cherese Chery, the city's Director of Human Resources. I am not sure what Chery's background is investigating similar complaints, but none the less, that is the City way.  The investigation sat in the HR Director's Office for roughly five months until on September 28, 2018, a report was forwarded to Assistant Chief Medina with her findings.

Despite most, if not all of Baerga's allegations being substantiated through the HR Director's "investigation", the  only recommendation was that " the results of the Investigation indicate an opportunity for sexual harassment prevention training" for Sergeant Rodney and Lieutenant West.

That's it,  a slap on the wrist and "retraining" for the abuser.

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On December 21, 2018, HPD Assistant Chief Jason Thody referred the matter back to HPD internal Affairs Commander Lt. Kevin O'Brien for further investigation , above and beyond the recommendations of the HR Director. O'Brien was instructed to fully investigate the matter  for potential Code of conduct violations. This, in my opinion, is where the investigation should have resided from the start instead of the delays caused by City Hall intervening and adding an undue delay to Baerga's complaint

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I am not clear why the policy requires the matter to be referred to the HR Director rather than the investigators at HPD actually conducting an investigation. This would seem to cause an undue delay to the facts actually coming out or more likely is it a way for City Hall to control the outcome?

More to come on this I am pretty sure as more layers of the onion get peeled back

Baerga Complaint by on Scribd