They promised they’d change.
Really.
They swore it would be different this time.

In all the propaganda published over the last few days, not once have I seen a reporter call into question Hartford’s latest “changes” regarding how police will be operating.

Perhaps not everyone cheering today’s propaganda was here — in Hartford or existing as a human — for the last few decades, but surely reporters could be troubled to search their own archives. This is how they might have learned how often residents have requested foot patrols, how many times police agreed to them, and then how quickly residents were asking for them again as the patrols either quietly disappeared or never served areas of need.

It’s easy to find someone to slip on their rose-colored glasses and talk about how things were “back in the day,” but maybe harder to look at what people were actually saying back in that day about these patrols.

Let’s begin with recent memory. In his 2017 proposed budget, former mayor Luke Bronin wanted to have 22 cops (21 officers, 1 sergeant) reassigned to walk beats. Anyone know what happened to that? 

 

 

In August 2003, former mayor Eddie Perez announced that 20 cops would be reassigned to walk beats.

A decade before, Hartford invited in dozens of state troopers for what they dubbed “Operation Liberty.” They showed up, made hundreds of arrests, and left in 1993. Scrambling to do something, additional police were assigned to foot patrol after state troopers left. The Hartford Courant reported as much at the time, showing police inside an abandoned Putnam Heights building that was being used as a shooting gallery.

Those weren’t full-blown foot patrols, though. They were dubbed “mini foot patrols” — in Frog Hollow, Clay Arsenal, Blue Hills, and the South End — ranging from 20-40 minutes, “depending on the availability of the officers.”

That one throwaway phrase tells you everything you need to know about why walk patrols have repeatedly fizzled and then been trotted out again about once each mayoral term. No matter how much residents prefer these human-scale encounters, no matter how much the officers themselves want to be in the open air — whether on foot or bicycle — someone else is calling the shots about how available the officers are for this beat. Those in uniform are given their orders (or, assignments) and policing is an industry in which compliance — not creativity — is valued above most else.

Months after that piece was published lauding police walking down Park Street, another article in March 1994 shined a light on some issues with the program. One resident said she hadn’t seen one of these walk beats happen on Ward Place. Over 60 residents showed up for this Behind the Rocks meeting; that’s large attendance for a neighborhood meeting.

Knowing roughly how many officers were assigned to walk these mini-beats at the time, here’s the result for the early months in that neighborhood: 16 in January, 37 in February, and 45 in March. If fulfillment counted as one officer walking for 20 minutes, That’s basically one officer doing one of those stints once a day in the neighborhood. Not a whole lot.

The Courant paraphrased the assistant police chief as saying that “mini-beats often are not filled if there are more important calls for service.”

In June of that year, HPD rolled out bicycle patrols, with two officers volunteering for that assignment. They received training, and the whole enterprise was promoted as saving money (bikes are cheaper than cruisers), benefiting from less visibility (cyclists are invisible to most people in a way that cars are not), and opening up access (bicycles go places that cars cannot). 

Months later, Hartford Areas Rally Together donated a bicycle to the police for use in Frog Hollow.

The following year, the paper covered how nineteen officers trained for bike patrol duties, though buried in the article is the detail that 14 had previously received formal bike cop certification. Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance donated five bikes in 1997.

Even in uniform, being out on the bicycle has acted like an invisibility cloak for officers. In 1998, one told the paper: “‘I have literally pedaled up to a drug dealer, took his drugs out of his hand and said, You’re under arrest. ‘I guess they don’t expect a police officer to come at them on a bicycle,’ he said. ‘They react differently than they would to a cruiser or an officer on foot.'” 

At that time, the bike unit had 35 members.

In 2009, SINA would donate two bikes to the police for use in the “south end” neighborhoods. By then, the paper began saying that bicycle patrols increased visibility of officers. Instead of exclusively selling the idea with stealth, bike cops were presented as improving community relations . . . and also able to have better access than cars to certain places, like Park Street — a busy commercial and residential street that is mostly only two lanes. That quality makes it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to use.

The following year, the former Frog Hollow CSO was quoted in the paper as saying he’s got both more visibility and stealth when on a bike.

It’s been real quiet since 2010 as far as bike policing getting any news attention in Hartford.

So far this year, I have seen exactly one bike-mounted officer. He was riding through Bushnell Park and may have been a State Capitol officer. Once or twice a year is about the most I see any police bike patrol in Hartford outside of special events like parades or park festivals. As someone who is always on the lookout for cyclist friends, I actually do notice bikes. It’s been years since I’ve seen police doing a walk beat. With walking as my primary mode of transportation, I would notice.

You might think that 1993 was the earliest police were doing walk beats in Hartford. It wasn’t. In 1988, police were making an effort to reassign police to the 20 walk beats, which were not even freshly created then. This was a reaction to feedback from City Council and various neighborhood organizations that wanted to know why these positions were only filled half the time. To fully staff the 20 walk beat areas, police said they needed 56 officers since some needed to work with partners. Then, in 1988, a resident activist was skeptical about whether or not police would stick to this or if the police would “snow-job” City Council. The answer came two years later when residents and merchants along Franklin Avenue complained about the lack of foot patrols. Two days after a bakery burglary and a break-in with sexual assault in that area, the HPD chief at the time denied the request to assign an officer to foot patrol on Franklin Avenue.

In 1979, residents in my neighborhood — the area around Park Street — were asking for a foot patrol a few months after the HPD promised exactly one officer to to walk beat along Main Street.

Now, since we’re going to go back before my time, let’s just make the jump by a generation. In 1943, there were differing opinions about why 15 foot patrols were cut. Some blamed the mayor’s budget. The mayor said those blaming the budget were “not fully aware of the facts of this situation.”

What were those “facts”? Police blamed the war. And, then said private security took over many of the police foot patrols. In July, after the new budget, it was announced the the foot patrol doubled in the Windsor Street area, bringing the total number of police walking that area to two. Downtown was assigned five walk beats during the daytime, switching to ten walk beats after the standard work day and through the night. That sounds promising, right?

Here’s the hitch: foot patrols in “outlying districts” were replaced by police in cruisers. 

Here, we have police going hard on a newer technology, and the results were . . . well, that depends on who you asked.

In April 1950, the police chief was declaring it a success, this move to cruiser police. He said there had been no complaints from the public. This was his response to the city manager’s request to reassign some cruiser cops to walk beats. In retrospect, we can laugh at the metrics used: more arrests were being made by those in cruisers than those on foot; it did not say if there was more crime being reported in one area versus another. It did not tell about the nature of the arrests. An arrest for loitering is not the same as an arrest for assault.

Post World War II prosperity which kept more people housed and employed, probably had far more to do with any crime reduction than sticking cops in cars did.

While it might seem to make logistical sense to use cars for the “outlying” districts, we should consider both optics and how this feels: the most sought after and human element of an operation is funneled into one area, while the others receive a detached and inherently dehumanizing service. It’s the drive-thru of policing: it’s not that there’s nothing to show for it, but how much does the fast food sandwich resemble one that someone did not rush to assemble? It becomes all about numbers. Quantity, not quality of service.

Two years later, the same police chief was saying that they didn’t need more officers on foot or in cars — just ones who would stay. Low morale and absenteeism is what he said was the cause for why they couldn’t (wouldn’t?) keep the 25 foot patrol beats staffed. The officers patrolling on foot were not specifically the issue. He said it wasn’t just bad, but the worst morale it had been in his 32 years on the force. Yet, no reason was given for why that was the case. At 72 years later, we are still hearing gripes about low morale at HPD.

No explanation was provided for how, or if, that so-called morale issue was addressed.

But, residents did want the foot patrols back, specifically in the old neighborhoods described as the “East Side” and “North End” — one of which was later largely demolished to make way for Constitution Plaza. The paper published the words of an “expert” who literally said that a “motorized officer” is “nothing more than a foot patrolman who has been provided with easy transportation.”

Some form of foot patrols persisted during this era of high prosperity.

Later, with more headlines being made as Baby Boomers began coming of age, the requests for foot patrols were more urgent. In the early 60s, two officers on a walk beat wrestled a gun away from a shooter and made the arrest. Another time, foot patrol officers helped to catch three teenagers who had been burglarizing homes and a doctor’s office on five different streets in the South End. Mid-60s, residents did not want a halfway house on Irving Street but were unable to fight it; to help existing neighborhood residents — the ones who did not sell their homes out of fear — feel more comfortable, the city council drafted a resolution for a police foot patrol in the area. Around this time police asked for a larger budget, partly to expand foot patrols in Frog Hollow and on Barbour Street from part-time to 24/7, and to create a new 24/7 walk beat in Parkville.

By the early 70s, city council was once again asking for more foot patrols; in 1974, new special units, including foot patrols, were added to downtown, Asylum Hill, and various housing projects. Frog Hollow residents requested foot patrols the following year, at the same time that former City Councilperson Richard Suisman introduced an ordinance that would lower gun sale age from 21 to 18. That was apparently a move made at the request of police, who were also not making any guarantees about maintaining a foot patrol in Frog Hollow.

During this era, there was even a letter to the editor from someone who thought it was reasonable to assign an officer, on foot, to every single block in the city until crime vanished. At some point, we have to be realistic about what police can and cannot do. Their presence can potentially deter some types of crime, but it is always going to be more effective to go after deeper causes: toxic masculinity, unhealthy anger, the issues that provoke people to self-medicate, unstable housing, low employment opportunities.

During a heated neighborhood meeting at St. Augustine’s Church in 1976, residents threatened to organize a vigilante force, feeling like their time was wasted at a meeting during which a police captain said he could not hire more police. Residents were asking for more foot patrols in Barry Square, including all of Franklin Avenue. You should know by now: once again, police told residents to take it up with city council.

Over and over and over again. Police say they don’t have the funding but say or imply they would like to have walk beats. City Council requests more community-centered patrolling and expands the policing budget. Police say they have a morale issue. Rinse, repeat.

Why is it that despite residents calling for walk beats again and again, the police department has yet to consistently deliver this service? When someone tells you who they are back in 1943, and reminds you of who they are every couple of years over multiple generations, why would you expect them to have radically changed without actually radically changing?

The latest incarnation of Hartford’s walk beat?
Thoroughly unimpressive.

On Friday, July 26, 2024, it was reported that five officers would be assigned to the entirely made up divisions of “North Hartford, South Hartford, and downtown.” To put it another way, five officers walking throughout the entire city. Except, they aren’t even doing that. It’ll be two on Albany Avenue, two on Park Street, and one in Downtown. There are 370 officers — far more total officers than back in 1943 when there were ten walk beats in the evenings in downtown alone.

For five patrols in the entire city . . . they really had a press conference about that?! Like, to brag?

The only detail that seems potentially different about this than the million other iterations of Hartford’s vanishing walk beat is that this time, we’re being told that “officers on the walk beats would not be transferring out of the positions unless they were promoted.” This seems promising, but we need more info to be convinced that this is not brimming with loopholes. What happens if/when those officers get promoted? Do they fill the vacancy, or just quietly phase out the position? Those were answers I wanted from the recent announcement, but did not get because normally communications people anticipate what they’ll be asked, and they must have known that nobody would bother to be curious about why this was not just one more flash in the pan promise of giving the people something closer to what we want.

If we know our history — and now, we all should know it better — then we know not to expect a whole lot of anything from this latest round of promises, which included the buzzword “community-based policing.”

During that press conference, Mayor Arulampalam said that “Hartford residents deserve a responsive and visible police force that is ready to respond quickly to their needs,” and that “these reforms will help our community feel more connected to their police department and will ensure that department processes and standards are reflective of modern best practices.”

Almost daily, police have been arresting people for panhandling.

Late last week, they arrested a large number of people on prostitution charges — something police had stayed away from in recent years except when pertaining to crimes like sex trafficking.

Then, just one day after that press conference, police arrested two homeless individuals on a charge that is so rarely used that I do not recall when last I saw it: being in a park after hours:


[The purple bar is the redaction that I, not the HPD, made regarding the two arrestees’ personal information]

 

Although others were arrested as well, one has to ask why they deemed it necessary to charge two homeless men who had no other offenses when making a social services call on their behalf would have been . . . actually a community based response.

The others arrested at the Bond Street Parkette included someone with a Waterford address who was taken in also on interfering with police and criminal impersonation; and two female Hartford residents only charged with violating the park hours ordinance. These arrest times were between 10:23 and 11:23 PM. There were no noise violations. Nobody was charged with creating a disturbance.

Earlier that evening, police arrested a person (who wasn’t homeless) on the park hours ordinance, along with a trespassing and missed court appearance — in Colt Park. This was at 8:54 PM. Dusk began at 8:45 PM. 

He also received no charges to indicate he was doing anything besides being in a place he shouldn’t for an additional nine minutes.

That same night in my neighborhood, someone was racing their three-wheel motorcycle (Slingshot or similar model) around the block repeatedly, squealing the tires. A few years ago in this neighborhood, someone driving one of these motorcycles recklessly and on the wrong side of the road — passing three vehicles at once — struck and seriously injured a pedestrian on nearby Park Street.

I have to question decisions like this: arresting people for existing in a public space instead of tackling what is at minimum a noise violation and reckless driving, but is also a threat to those others in the area who were trying to use the street, which included young people on bicycles and skateboards.

When the police say they don’t have enough staff, this is a recurring scenario they should be asked about. Why choose to enforce the park hours ordinance (being in a park at night does not inherently create an issue), crack down on prostitution (only potentially directly harms those consenting to the activity), continuously harass people panhandling (fundraising is legal in this country when the person asking is a Girl Scout or politician) when there are people out there engaged in activities that can immediately harm others?

If we’re going to rebrand the police as engaging in community-based policing, then I expect to see that, rather than more of the same.

If we are going to keep any sort of a police department — and we should think of this as an “if” and not a given situation for all eternity — then we should be leaning much more heavily on walk and bike patrols than anything else. Making officers more vulnerable by removing them from metal boxes also makes them understand the community better. The whole relationship can shift significantly when the attitude is one of “I am here among you” instead of “I am blasting onto this block only when called and in a vehicle with bull bars that in itself can kill.”

Although not police, I recently observed a Hartford Parking Authority interaction that should be more of the norm. I did not stick around to see if a ticket ended up being issued, but the employee was standing by a vehicle that was “parked” next to a park. Its driver emerged from the park to talk to the worker, who asked in a friendly and direct way: “Can you tell me what is wrong with how you parked?” His whole demeanor was one that only the world’s biggest asshole would have been offended by. She basically said she didn’t know what the problem was. She was also not escalating the situation. He asked again, and then urged her to look at what was different about how she was parked from all the other cars on the street. He easily could have printed the ticket, stuck it under the wiper, and drove off by the time she had made her way across the park, but he chose to have an educational conversation instead. She was parked half on the street, half on the curb/sidewalk; it sounded as if she really did not know that this was not how to park a car. Getting nailed with a fine changes some people’s behavior, but so can a simple conversation. No need for flashing lights and threat of imprisonment. Getting out of a vehicle and chatting with people in a human-to-human way makes a diference.

We should be moving rapidly away from the broken policing model that has been the norm in this country. Doing this requires that people redevelop basic trust in others, and in a time when doorbell cameras are everywhere, there’s work to do to fix this sad, conditioned fearful assessment of others. Five officers moved out of their metal boxes and into the community is a start, maybe. A more serious approach would have been five permanent walk beats per district, for this fiscal year, with a plan to double that the following year . . . and this would not be an addition of police, but the removal of them from cruisers. Having directly witnessed many outsized responses to serious crimes where upwards of six cruisers are on the scene and three officers are doing the bulk of the work while the others just stand on the side and shoot the shit, the scenarios people imagine needing all hands on deck are rare and not something worth building a loophole into walk beats to accommodate for.

The general public needs to relearn trust in each other, but police also need to get less jaded by getting the hell out of their metal boxes and having regular interactions with the public they serve — not only showing up when there’s a reported issue. I have been in the neighborhood meetings where police will talk about how dangerous something is, and it’s like we’re talking about two different Hartford’s: the one I live in, and the one he sees through a very narrow lens of crime, so narrow that it creates criminals out of people lingering in a park not even a full ten minutes after dusk.