nothin New Chief Takes Reins After Deadly Weekend | New Haven Independent

New Chief Takes Reins After Deadly Weekend

Melissa Bailey Photo

On his first day in office, Police Chief Frank Limon was quickly confronted with concerns about a violent Easter weekend, where three separate shootings left two people dead.

Limon was sworn in Monday morning in City Hall. His ceremony came on the heels of a bloody holiday weekend where two people were killed, two more were shot, and a teenage girl barely escaped with her life after she turned a knife against her attacker.

Limon said he doesn’t have any answers yet on the crimes, but will review how the department is deploying its resources. Limon joins the New Haven force after 30 years on the Chicago police force, where he supervised 600 people in the Organized Crime Department (OCD) before retiring in 2008.

Mayor John DeStefano said most of the weekend’s violence fit a pattern: the victims had past criminal records, and the shootings appeared to be drug-related. Chief Limon’s experience battling drug gangs in Chicago put him in a strong position to deal with these problems, he said.

He’s definitely got his hands full,” said Tyrone Weston, head of the street outreach workers program, who was picking up the pieces of the weekend’s crimes.

In his new New Haven gig, Limon will lead a police force of 452 officers. His salary is $150,000. His term will run through Feb. 1, 2014.

He takes the reins from Assistant Chief Stephanie Redding, who led the department an interim basis for the last five weeks. He replaces James Lewis, who left New Haven Feb. 26 following a 20-month stint reorganizing the police department.

Limon, who’s Mexican-American, is married to a retired police detective, Gissella, who hails from Ecuador. They got into town Thursday from Chicago. They moved into a new home at City Point’s Harbor Landing condominium complex with Gissella’s mother. (Gissella is pictured pinning a badge on her husband Monday.)

Limon said he spent the weekend walking around New Haven. On Easter Sunday, he attended St. Francis Church on Ferry Street in Fair Haven.

He got an abrupt introduction to New Haven’s crime: Just as worshippers around the city were leaving church Sunday around 3 p.m., an 18-year-old was fatally shot in the head while riding a four-wheeler in Newhallville. He died Monday morning. Earlier that weekend, a Hamden man was killed in Westville, two men were shot in the Hill, and a teenager survived an attack by a knife-wielding man in Fair Haven. One of the men shot in the Hill remained in critical condition on Monday afternoon.

Limon was quickly confronted with these problems as he opened the floor to questions after his applause-filled ceremony. The first question a reporter asked was how he plans to address the weekend’s violence.

The new chief said he needs to learn more before determining any specific course of action. First, he plans to hold a staff meeting to find out what’s going on.” Second, I need to find out what kind of resources are out there, and how they’re being deployed.”

I’d like to assess what’s there now before I could say anything,” Limon said.

Limon said he will spend the next few days meeting with top command staff and getting up to speed on the crimes of the last 30 days. He plans to get out in the community and learn more about the community,” too.

Asked a second time about the violent weekend, Limon offered a general philosophy:

The police department cannot solve crime alone,” he said. We actually need the community to be part of our team.” He encouraged neighbors to cooperate with police to help solve the crimes, and make the city safer by joining block watches.

He declined to give specifics on his managerial plans, except to say he aims to pinpoint hot corners and deploy police accordingly.

Mayor DeStefano stepped in to lend some specifics. He said almost everyone involved in the weekend’s incidents had a criminal record. Radcliff Deroche, the young man who was fatally shot while driving the ATV, was no stranger to police, the mayor said. Deroche had been shot before on Congress Avenue over a year ago, and was not cooperative with police at that time, he said.

Deroche was killed in retaliation for stealing the ATV, according to the street outreach workers’ director Weston. Police declined to comment on that theory.

The mayor said the people involved in the crimes come from a population of violent offenders who know each other and are involved in selling drugs. The city is tackling the problem not just through law enforcement, but by providing positive choices,” for youth and ex-offenders, he said.

He framed the weekend incidents as an affirmation of his new budget, which raises taxes to pay for an extra 34 cops on the streets.

Now is a time not to withdraw support for lots of these efforts, but frankly to be ever more present and involved in them,” DeStefano said.

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