A responsive rather than reactionary police department was one of the sentiments shared Wednesday night at a forum at Bethel AME Church on Grove Street.
In response to clergy and neighborhood concerns about public safety Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, a multi-faith concern, hosted the forum facilitated by Pastor Bernadette Hickman-Maynard of Bethel AME and Pastor Anthony Bennett of Mount Aery Baptist Church.
Topics addressed included police response, neighborhood interaction and community policing, as well as the horrific shooting of nine people that left a man dead last week at Trumbull Gardens housing project.
From Fausto Giovanny Pinto, CT Post:
Marta Reyes, a longtime Bridgeport resident and family advocate, said she was attending the event to observe, particularly in light of last week’s shootings at the Trumbull Gardens apartments, where nine people were shot, one fatally.
“In my opinion, we are such a reactive society, and it takes an event like this for people to react.” said Reyes on the Trumbull Gardens incident. “This has been going on in the city for 35 years.”
Full story here.
There had to be more than was said than this, such poor effort by the police chief. I must say there is no one around who has questioned and spoken out about police response than Andy Fardy, he has posted some very good information on the working of police calls and why. Andy pointed out there are 21 cars on duty to respond to all calls in a day. Think about that, just 21 police cars and that doesn’t mean there are two officers in each car because there could be just one officer.
Here we are one week after the shooting of nine people at Trumbull Gardens. I have not seen one item about the investigation into this shooting, not a single goddamned word.
Do they have suspects? If so, why hasn’t that been publicized? Based on my past experience the people who were shot and the people who did the shooting know each other.
Chief Gaudett was at the church meeting spouting the same line of BS he always says. We are extremely busy and must answer calls by their importance. I know this is BS because two years ago I had my truck tires slashed three different times, it cost me $3,000 to replace those tires three times. Not once, yes that’s right, not once did a cop respond to at least take down the information. My wife went to the PD and told the cop on duty she wanted to file a complaint. The cop ask against who and she said the police department for not doing their job. Well the next thing you know a cop shows up at my door he stated that he did not get the report on these losses he told me someone does not like me. Can you imagine that? I wrote a live letter and I received four calls from people living in the area with the same complaint and the cop telling them someone must be after them. There was no one after them, I found out who it was because my neighbor got his plate number after the third time. This kid will not be slashing any more tires, enough said about this reformed wiseass. But that is the type of police protection we are getting from Gaudett and the four old men who are deputies.
Andy,
How could anyone not like you???
That cop for sure didn’t know who he was talking to.
Then again he could have checked OIB for a Top Ten list of suspects.
Bob, that’s what I was wondering. I even have a degree from Dale Carnegie.
Earlier this year I was in a situation where I needed the cops, they took over one hour to respond. When the officer responded he said something like they had a high number of calls, that’s why it took so long to respond. The officer was nice and polite I must say and is a reflection of all the good men and women on the force. But there is something wrong when it takes the cops over a hour to respond to a scene. A lot of other city residents have had the same experience as me waiting over a hour for the cops to arrive. Hire more cops, Finch has done a horrible job with this undermanned police force.
When I ran for councilman for the 138th in the last election I had the same question about response times. I was told there is only one police car on the off shifts to patrol the lower East Side from Sunday to Thursday. I don’t blame the patrol officers, that responsibility falls on Finch and Gaudett. The buck stops there!