Alders delve into New Haven police relationship with Yale police
NEW HAVEN — New Haven Corporation Counsel Patricia King says there were plans formed to review the 1992 memorandum of understanding between the city and Yale University police.
Then the pandemic derailed those plans, she said.
“It really has not progressed very far,” she said.
Meanwhile, an aldermanic workshop was set up to explore questions around the jurisdictional, operational and logistical relationships between the New Haven Police Department and university police and to answer questions about one type of relationship: the working relationship.
That relationship, according to Yale University Chief of Police Ronnell Higgins and New Haven Chief of Police Otoniel Reyes, is very positive and productive. Some other questions at the workshop this week went unanswered.
Questions arose around accountability arose following an April 2019 police shooting of an unarmed New Haven couple on Argyle Street, in which police officers from Hamden and Yale crossed jurisdictional boundaries after what turned out to be a false report of an armed robbery at a gas station.
According to police reports and body camera video, Hamden and Yale police arrived separately and located a parked car they believed matched the description of the one seen at the gas station. Hamden Officer Devin Eaton began firing his weapon when driver Paul Witherspoon exited his car, and Yale Officer Terrance Pollock also fired his weapon. Unarmed passenger Stephanie Washington was injured when she was hit by bullets fired by Eaton during the exchange.
As increased calls for police accountability rose throughout the city, several alders sought the workshop for answers on the jurisdictional authority of university police. One of those alders, Steve Winter, D-21, asked Higgins about the 1992 memorandum of understanding that governs the university police department’s relationship to the city.
Winter said he had questions around why the university has “potential autonomy over discipline” if an officer is found to have conducted an act of misconduct.
“It would be really helpful to see the relationship spelled out more clearly,” he said.
Higgins said the standards for university police and city police are no different.
“It sounds like the state statute spells out the university employs the police officers after they have been appointed by the Board of Police Commissioners, and at that point it’s up to the university and Board of Police Commissioners to negotiate the terms of the relationship,” Winter said. “Under the 1992 memorandum of understanding, the city ceded everything related to promotion, termination and discipline to the university. Is that how you would characterize it?”
Higgins said he would not characterize it that way, saying that, as the Yale police department is a police department, he would not consider the department overseeing its affairs as the city ceding any responsibility.
Winter said he was looking for more information on the memorandum of understanding because it could impact the city’s process in subjecting officers to accountability for alleged misconduct.
Higgins said he did not invite any counsel with him to Tuesday’s workshop, and he felt Winter’s questions were of a legal nature. Committee chairman and retired police Capt. Gerald Antunes, D-12, said that he believed the letter Winter signed inviting Higgins onto the call was to ask for more clarity on the co-existance of the university and city police departments in New Haven.
For about an hour, officials with Yale and New Haven police described the positive working relationship they have. Former New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell, now an assistant chief at Yale, said Yale offered New Haven backup during protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where New Haven protesters headed toward police headquarters.
“I really see us as a family,” said New Haven Chief Reyes.
Reyes came to the defense of Yale’s officer Pollock, who fired shots in the 2019 Argyle Street incident in which Washington was shot.
“If you break things down, the Yale police officer did nothing wrong. His only transgression was to hear something happening over the radio and try to be a cop,” Reyes said. “Is there always room for improvement? We can always improve on our policies and procedures.”
brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
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