Police Chief Rilling will likely be unhappy as he reads the newspapers today. Reinstated office Liam Callahan is back in the news, this time he was charged in Newtown with first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace. John Nickerson reports:
Callahan, who was fired for a year after taking a skull fragment from an accident scene in 2005 but later was reinstated, turned himself in at Newtown police headquarters Tuesday evening, Newtown Capt. Joe Rios said.
Callahan’s arrest sparked an internal Norwalk police investigation that could result in his second firing, a police source said. Callahan was placed on administrative leave June 9, the day the Newtown incident took place.
Officer William Curwen, president of the police union, said he was shocked to hear about it.
“Whatever happens, the union is going to do what we have to do to protect Callahan’s labor issues and try to fight for his job,” Curwen said.
Little is known about the early-morning incident at a restaurant on Church Hill Road. Shortly after the investigation began, Newtown police issued a statement saying a man called headquarters to report that a man he did not know pointed a gun at him. The man told police the threat took place at 1:30 a.m. June 9 in the restaurant’s bathroom.
But officer Callahan is the least of Rilling’s problems. The Hour’s Noelle Frampton reports:
“If people knew, in general, what was going on, I think there would be a public outcry,” said Police Chief John Cashin of Tisbury, Mass., a former Norwalk captain and department member for 25 years. “The city of Norwalk deserves more than it’s getting.”
Cashin said Wednesday that he left the department last August partly because of a lack of discipline. The matter of Officer Liam Callahan, who was fired for mishandling a piece of human skull but then reinstated by the state Board of Labor Relations, was the final straw, he said.
“It was just something I couldn’t associate with anymore. Things were getting so out of hand. I think whoever is going to lead that department has got to just pick up the carpet by the ends and shake everything. The culture of a department comes from the top down.”
Cashin said department morale is in the dumps because officers aren’t held to high standards. From excessive force to reckless driving to insubordination to simply coming in late, officers don’t get punished properly and departmental drama resembles a soap opera set, he and others said.In what some consider the latest episode in a long-running series of wrist-slapping, Officer Russell Ouellette is back to work. Ouellette was on paid administrative leave for more than two years after he was accused of covering up his son’s alleged impersonation of a policeman, and was granted a two-year state probation program last month that will likely result in dropped charges.
Ouellette was required to serve an unpaid 90-day suspension, the last 30 days held in abeyance based on his behavior. He served the first 30 days, then began “working in a limited capacity” as a desk and communications officer until the end of August, and will serve the final 30 days after that, said Norwalk Police Chief Harry Rilling.
“This was arranged with the union so that we could accommodate our manpower needs,” he said, adding that Ouellette is responsible for updating his own training before returning to the street.
During his leave, he accrued salary, vacation and sick days while working a second job, other policemen said.
“If you could walk the halls invisibly, it would be very easy to hear the unrest, the apathy and the discord that resounds throughout that building,” Cashin said. “When I was there I was very loyal to the chief, and I know he’s not going to like these statements, but maybe it should be viewed as a last-ditch effort to get somebody to wake up to what’s been going on in that department for years. I will tell the truth and I’ll accept the consequences for it.”
Cashin left around the same time as former Deputy Chief Mark Palmer, now police chief in Coventry, and Michael Dolhancryk, former city director of combined communications and emergency preparedness planning.
Rilling naturally defended his department.
But Rilling said people often like to gripe, but they don’t know all the facts — and a few disgruntled officers do not represent the views of the whole department.
“I think my history has shown that (a lackluster approach to discipline) not to be the case. If you look back at my history, there is not a chief prior to me who has taken the number of serious disciplinary actions that I’ve taken. Has my discipline been perfect? I would say probably not. Very few things are, but you do the best you can. I believe I’ve been fair. If you talk to the union, I’m much too severe.”
It does seem that the number of high-profile police discipline cases has been rising within the past decade. Rilling, chief since 1995, has fired or asked for the resignations of four officers and demoted a former sergeant by two ranks within the past five years. The officers’ alleged offenses ranged from sexual assault to bribe extortion and stealing.
Except that routine police work, such as actually interrogating the alleged suspect “Todd” in the Pagano pron case, and filing the paperwork so that prosecutors could shut down brothels posing as spas is not getting done either. Norwalk, it turns out, does not have a good reputation when it comes to investigating crimes. The drug dealers operate in the open on woodward ave. a few blocks south of the Police station, an area well known to police departments in other cities in Connecticut. Police officials from New Haven, Danbury and Stamford have all spoken about the frustrations in dealing with Norwalk since Rilling became chief in 1995.
Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia stood behind Rilling’s administration and was angry that Cashin and other unhappy officers didn’t come to him and other police commissioners before speaking to the press. He called Cashin’s exposé “disingenuous.
“He should worry about handling where he is now,” Moccia said Wednesday. “I have faith in (Rilling). The police commission has faith. There’s no perfect world when you’re disciplining people. When he disciplines, he’s criticized and the police union takes it to arbitration. When he doesn’t discipline, he’s criticized. Sometimes you’re going to be criticized no matter where you go.”
Mayor Moccia’s support of Rilling may prove to backfire fairly quickly. Once again, sloppy police work is being defended by RIlling in the Crystal Spa raid, which may lead to the alleged madam having her case dismissed.
Norwalk Superior Court has no record of Kim’s co-defendants from the raid, three Korean women charged with prostitution, although they were supposed to be there this week.
“That’s weird,” said Diamond, who was looking for files on Dwyei Suok, Ky Sook Kim and Min Kim Wednesday. “I don’t understand it.”
Two of the women are New Jersey residents and one is from Flushing, N.Y., according to court records.
Often alleged prostitutes nabbed in “spa” raids don’t show up to court, said police Chief Harry Rilling. Rilling and Randall were unsure exactly how often that happens.
Those who do show up tend to be more invested in the business, Rilling said, adding that many tend to move out of state, and may be part of a human trafficking ring.
“It’s very, very difficult to track them down; difficult to tell if they’re coming back to court or not,” he said.
“Very often we encounter new people (at “spas”) and it’s really difficult to verify their identifications and the exact correct English spellings of their names,” Randall said. “One of the key elements is fingerprints.”
Sometimes, upon running a suspected prostitute’s fingerprints, police find she’d used a different name or a different spelling in the past, he said.
Rilling seems to have an unending supply of excuses. Maybe Mayor Moccia should take a look into that.Remember this May post?
Now I seem to remember reading something about this just a few weeks ago. What was it? Oh yes. John Nickerson reported on April 28th (emphasis mine):
A month ago, police asked state prosecutors to use the state’s Nuisance Abatement and Quality of Life Act to shut down 261 Tranquility and Nirvana Spa at 181 Main St.
That request was turned down because police did not act quickly enough to turn in their reports of earlier raids at those locations to the state’s Nuisance Abatement Unit before a one year deadline.Yesterday’s raid may help bolster the city’s complaint against Tranquility.
How many mistakes by Rilling’s department should be tolerated? The “blue code of silence” is not often breached. For former officers to openly criticize Rilling to the extent that is happening has gone well beyond the old adage of where there’s smoke there’s fire.
source: Advocate Norwalk officer arrested again, By John Nickerson, July 26, 2007
source: The Hour, Critics:Weak discipline plagues police dept., By NOELLE FRAMPTON, July 26, 2007
source: The Hour, Spa’s alleged ‘madam’ seeks return of cash, car after raid, By NOELLE FRAMPTON, July 26, 2007
