Police Chief Joe Gaudett on Friday hosted his first weekly crime briefing in which he shares updates on crime statistics, trends and police investigations. Crime statistics continue to show a trend of violent crime up this year from last year such as murders and shootings while overall crime is down such as burglary and motor vehicle thefts.
Public safety spokesman Kevin Coughlin has more.
Today, Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett, Deputy Chief of Investigative Services Adam Radzimirski, and Bridgeport Project Manager for Project Longevity Charlie Grady held a weekly press briefing on crime statistics at the Police Department Headquarters at 300 Congress Street.
Police Chief Gaudett broke down the crime statistics, explained the trends the Police Department was seeing, and discussed some of the tactics police were using to counter these trends. The meeting also served as another method of informing the public about public safety in the city.
“It is important to make the community a part of public safety,” said Police Chief Gaudett. “The people of Bridgeport are a partner of the Police Department in helping keep our city safe. Public safety is everyone’s business and it needs to be done collaboratively.”
The information that was presented is poured over at the weekly COMPSTAT meeting. There the Bridgeport Police Department division commanders, captains, deputy chiefs, and Police Chief Gaudett evaluate crime numbers and trends throughout the city, neighborhood by neighborhood, district by district.
“When I meet with the various heads of the Bridgeport Police Department, this is the data we use to drive our strategy,” said Police Chief Gaudett. “We then dive in depth to the reports about these incidents so we can get further context around these numbers. Using the numbers and the reports behind the statistics, we use the best officers in the department to determine how we should to shift strategies and change tactics to counter any trends that we are seeing.”
While the statistics are unofficial and subject to change they provide the Bridgeport Police Department with a snapshot of what crimes are occurring and where they are happening. From there, police are able to make informed decisions about their strategy moving forward.
“We noticed an uptick in thefts from auto in the downtown area,” said Police Chief Gaudett. “In order to combat this we will be putting flyers on cars to remind people to lock their car doors and to not leave anything of value out.”
Deputy Police Chief Radzimirski noted the ongoing progress in a number of investigations.
“We have a number of ongoing investigations that are making good progress,” said Deputy Police Chief Radzimirski. “We only get one chance in trial so our detectives make sure we have more than just probable cause for these open cases.”
Project Manager Grady talked about the work of Project Longevity, a community and law enforcement initiative to reduce serious violence. Project Longevity is currently working with 65 individuals who were at risk of perpetrating or becoming a victim of a violent crime.
“The public often only sees when a crime occurs and when a crime is solved,” said Grady. “They don’t see the daily work of the Bridgeport Police Department and programs like Project Longevity.”
A meeting where nothing of substance was said.
Where was the update on the Trumbull Gardens ambush?
What a two-bit phony he and Finch are. Joe Ganim might be right. Even though Wilbur Chapman was a waste as a Chief, he still outshines Gaudett.
Quite a few a burglaries occurring in broad daylight in the Thomas Hooker area.
I have heard a number of neighbors express concerns about the rise in crime in our neighborhood.
Maria, so you know, there is a crew working in the neighborhood. They drive and park an older model maroon car. They dress like city or utility workers wearing bright tee shirts and vests with bright sneakers. They parked on my side yard and were getting into this car at 6AM. My friend told them to get the f off the lawn and they left. I have seen this vehicle twice in the neighborhood.
OMG, I’m glad this video was shown and I did see some good from it. I saw why the police chief needs to be replaced, he acted like he was in front of an oral panel at a police exam. The good news was we have seen how bad our police department really is and they are going to do this weekly. OMG, stop the madness. They all were rambling and they were showing us how bad our police department is being run.
This is a good step in the right direction. It still rankles that the local media had to shame the Finch administration into doing what they are required by public records laws and the Freedom of Information Act to do in the first place.
The NAACP sponsored a luncheon at the Holiday Inn to commemorate the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important civil rights milestones in U.S. history. The measure, signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, outlawed practices that barred blacks or other minorities from voting. It is still being debated in state legislatures and federal courts. According to a story in the New York Times written by Julia Hirschfeld Davis,
“The case is regarded as an important marker for defining the reach of the law after a 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down its most powerful enforcement tool–a requirement that states with histories of racial discrimination, including many in the South, win advance approval from the federal government before changing their election laws.”
Denise Merrill, Secretary of State, organized an event at East End Tabernacle Baptist Church for Thursday afternoon to honor The Rev. Mary McBride-Lee, a black woman who marched five decades ago in Selma, Ala., for the right to vote. Then it became a hot mess …
Adam “Pecker” Wood, Mayor Finch’s chief of staff, didn’t like the location or the honoree, a supporter of Joe Ganim. The Reverend Charles Stallworth, pastor of East End Tabernacle Baptist, is also a Ganim supporter. Wood contacted Merrill and whispered there was rumor the event would be used for political purposes. So, in a decision that has not been adequately explained, the Secretary of State cancelled the event, citing a “conflict.”
The Reverend McBride-Lee learned the Finch campaign had engineered the cancellation and was rightly angry and insulted. She let her feelings be known. Thursday morning McBride-Lee’s supporters, including the Ganim crowd (not “a bunch of stooges,” as Steven Auerbach so eloquently put it), circulated fliers outside the Holiday Inn, condemning Merrill and Finch. The Secretary of State did some damage control, asking the NAACP to include McBride-Lee on the program at the Holiday Inn. Messrs. Finch and Ganim spoke at both events.
“I was very torn yesterday and my heart was broken yesterday,” McBride-Lee told the church audience after Finch had left. “I think I cried more yesterday than I cried in my whole life.”
It was the mayor’s office that politicized the East End Tabernacle event. The Reverend Mary McBride-Lee is a brave woman who risked life and limb and family so all people have the right to vote. She marched with Reverend Martin Luther King. Alabama state troopers and vigilantes attacked the marchers with billy clubs, tear gas and fire hoses. The Reverend McBride-Lee risked life and limb protesting for everyone’s right to vote. George Wallace, Governor of Alabama at the time, refused to protect the marchers; President Lyndon Johnson ordered the National Guard, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service to protect them. Two of the marchers, Jimmie Lee Jackson and James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston, died. Jackson succumbed to a gunshot wound inflicted the day before; Reeb was murdered by night-riding Ku Klux Klansmen.
Bill Finch claimed ignorance of any involvement of his office in the whole sordid affair but a determined Connecticut Post reporter exposed the involvement of Adam Wood. Thanks a lot, Mr. Wood. The city of Bridgeport has been tarnished once again. If Mr. Finch is so ignorant of what his underlings are doing for his “benefit,” what does that say about the man himself? His chief of staff managed to drag down the State of Connecticut and the Office of the Secretary of State.
Chief: Why no mention of the home invasion in Lake Forest in June and the near-fatal beating and robbery of the elderly woman in that home invasion?
Lake Forest is not forgetting that, Chief. And we’re not forgetting the attempts of your office and City Hall to sweep it under the rug.
Extremely painful to watch.
I’m wondering what they are doing to catch the thieving punks stealing bicycles and robbing people at gun point in Black Rock.