High-Scoring Cop Denied Promotion

Police Chief Anthony Campbell passed over the third top scorer in the recent lieutenant exams to make 13 promotions — because of her integrity as an internal affairs investigator, her lawyer charged.

In a stealthily called last-minute late Friday meeting, the Board of Police Commissioners approved Chief Campbell’s recommendations for the 13 new lieutenants as well as five detectives. They are scheduled to be sworn in Friday at 4 p.m. at a ceremony at Wilbur Cross High School. In addition, Racheal Cain is to be sworn in as a new assistant chief.

(The commissioners sent ​“public notice” of the 6 p.m. emergency meeting to the city clerk’s office, which closes at 5 p.m., at 4:34 p.m. last Thursday, just in time to have it posted the legally required 24 hours in advance.)

Sgt. Rose Dell will not be among the names on the list of new lieutenants. Even though she had the third top score out of 31 applicants who passed the civil service test for the lieutenant position, her name did not appear on the promotion list.

That’s because she is under an internal investigation, according to Campbell.

“I have a rule if an internal investigation is going on, I won’t promote someone. And basically an incident occurred that is under investigation,” Campbell said.

“When I realized the severity of it, I said, ​‘You know what? Let’s do what we’ve done before. If there’s an internal investigation, hold off, so there’s no sense of impropriety.’ It helps the department with its transparency. We want to be fair and consistent.”

Campbell, who is personally friendly with Dell, a fellow Yale graduate, may have faced criticism of favoritism if he had promoted her.

However, Jonathan Einhorn, a former police commissioner whom Dell has hired to represent her in this matter, said Dell has been unfairly excluded form promotion because of ​“department politics.”

He said the investigation originally centered on whether Dell allegedly forwarded a video to the Independent of a near-fatal crash involving a dirt biker. She did not. She has been cleared of that allegation.

Another officer also accused Dell of improperly taking a video of that same crash from that officer’s cell phone and forwarding it to her own phone to use in the investigation. That part of the investigation is ongoing.

Dell currently serves as an investigator in the internal affairs office.

Einhorn argued that the investigation is without merit, stemming from personal gripes people might have with Dell because of how she does her job.

“This is retaliation for her being an active and ethical IA officer. New Haven is lucky to have her. But there’s a little bit of department politics going on here, which is the only reason why it looks like she’s not not being promoted to lieutenant,” Einhorn charged in an interview Wednesday. He said he doesn’t know yet what legal action if any he and Dell will take.

Under civil service rules, a department can skip over a top scorer for a promotion and promote people below her instead. That can happen only twice. (This story lists the results of the civil service exam.)

Campbell said he expects another round of lieutenant promotions to occur in February or March, based on expected retirements. Assuming the investigation concludes by then, and Dell is cleared, he can promote her then, he said.

“I’m unhappy with the process of how this was handled,” Police Union President Craig Miller said. He said Dell should have been promoted. ​“I’ve argued the same thing in the past” when people weren’t promoted in similar circumstances.

“The chief made the recommendations. The Board of Police Commissioners went with the chief’s recommendations,” said board Chair Anthony Dawson.

New Assignments Ahead

After Friday’s swearing in, the new lieutenants will undergo several weeks of command training. Then, in mid-August or September, they will assume their new assignments.

Campbell said he and his top staff are still working out the details of those assignments. It looks like Sgt. Manmeet Colon will probably become the new district manager in Westville/West Hills, he said, though no final decisions have been made on any of those top neighborhood cop slots. ​“We still have four to six weeks before we have to make those decisions,” he said. ​“I like to be proactive and make sure we touch base with every management team and all of the community members who have a stake in who they are going to be working with so there will be a proper transition. I don’t want to throw anybody into turbulent waters or set anyone up for failure.”

Soon-to-be Assistant Chief Cain, who used to oversee internal affairs, currently runs the police academy. Campbell said he hasn’t decided yet who will replace her there. Capt. Anthony Duff has replaced her as internal affairs chief.

The commissioners approved the following cops for lieutenant promotions: Wayne Bullock, John Healy, Stephan Torquati, David Zanelli, Manmeet Colon, Renee Dominguez, Brett Runlett, Karl Jacobson, Jason Rentkowicz, Derek Gartner, Rahgue Tennant, Mark O’Neil, and Elisa Tuozzoli.

The new detectives are Carmelo Rivera, Thomas Wynn, Frank Sanchez, Freddie Salmeron, and Matthew Collier.

Click here for a previous story about a previous commission meeting at which sergeant promotions were approved.