When Police Chief Roderick Porter took the helm as top cop about a year ago he promised community engagement including regular Facebook Live segments.
True to his word he’s showcased neighborhood interaction on a number of levels. See his latest Facebook Live and his outlook for 2024.
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Chief Porter,
I hope that your monthly two Tuesday broadcasts to the Bridgeport public continue. They are certainly examples of Open communication and some of the subjects covered, including the upcoming Lexus-Nexus crime data will make such information more transparent. The data may also provide a base for additional citizen questions about trends, how criminal activity is defined, and what your goals are. The reminder that you need to have an original plan before you set meaningful goals is important to all levels of governance. Thank you for the conscious effort to increase staffing by new and regular recruiting as well as being attentive to opportunities for lateral transfers. Your understanding of the stresses on your public safety officers and finding positive ways of dealing with health responses in terms of staffing patterns and wellness programs becoming welcome and doable by officers is also notable. Details on a potential Citizen Police Academy are in development. Hope that in-person plus virtual forums are included.
You envision the community with public safety officers as humans, with special skills, and a commitment to the rule of law, but also to be respected for their professional demonstrations of duty to keep several parts of the community in synch, daily. How did you rate your first year in command? Time will tell.
Attention Bridgeport Police Officers:
THE TOWN OF SHELTON IS READY TO HIRE YOU. THE DEADLINE TO APPLY IS JANUARY 19, 2024. RUN DOWN ROUTE 8 LIKE SPEEDY GONZALEZ AND GET THERE ASAP. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. HERE’S THE LINK AND DON’T EVEN BLINK:
https://www.policeapp.com/Certified-Shelton-CT-Police-Officer-Jobs/291/
Chief Porter,
We don’t want you to come on Facebook Live once a month or twice a month and give us EMPTY PROMISES and BS statistics that can be manipulated. We want you to be physically present and engaging with the community don’t hide behind the camera. We don’t need a redo of Acting Chief Garcia who disappears and goes on vacations and hides when things went wrong and who ignored the community until the time came for her apply to be the official Chief. Then you saw her jumping off buildings to try to save her job.
I have yet to see you at any community meetings and city council meetings.
James Clarke,
In your opinion you do not care for monthly meetings by the Chief? Or you do not like “empty promises” and “BS statistics”? Or each statement is true to you.
How many community meetings do you attend? Which City Council meetings do you attend and do you get there early enough for public speaking? Have not had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with you. Porter in my mind is an educated and experienced officer who offers professional leadership to the community at large and to the officers entrusted to him by taxpayers.
Statistics are something I have pursued for ten years from Chief Gaudett, Chief Perez, and others including information officers but we never smoothed out the delivery system for the “Jack Webb” facts of crime fighting in Bridgeport with basic numbers provided to the FBI on a regular basis. I even worked on an anonymous system of mailing postpaid envelopes so that reporters could remain unknown in this day and age of phones that are smarter than their current users on occasion.
The chief promised more effective communication. In that regard the first 12 months should record a Passing grade in my opinion.
As offered in his most recent video, ask a question, raise an issue, state a problem that is assigned to his employment and count all of us fortunate to have such an open and accountable offer from this Department. Time will tell.
JML, stop brown-nosing Chief McGruff. All he is doing is chasing his tail. Ask him how many people died from Fentanyl overdoses in Bridgeport in 2023? Over 9,000 dead in Connecticut from 2015-2022. I’m sure we surpassed the 10,000 mark in 2023. Those numbers aren’t counted as homicides and are classified as accidental.
The most notorious of Bridgeport Fantanyl accidental overdoses was that of the Black female whose family is suing the city for $30 million. What did McGruff do? The idiot met with the attorney and promised him that “It won’t happen again.” Yep, he sided with the Plaintiff.
What McGruff won’t tell us and admit is this: Some time before she overdosed, she was arrested by the Bridgeport P.D. and booking videos shows her in a not so pretty state of affairs to say the least. Can you fucking say ‘Cover-up’? What you think the settlement split with Chief Mcgruff is?