Angered over anti-police sentiment, a “proud combat veteran” has turned in his New Haven police badge #50 after five years in order to combat crime in Arkansas instead.
The officer, Anthony Ryken, was sworn in as a member of the Conway, Arkansas, police department on April 13.
Ryken — who describes himself on Twitter as a “proud combat veteran who believes in defending our country” and a “Tough Mudder finisher” — previously served on that force for 17 years. Then he moved north and became a New Haven cop in 2016.
He turned in his resignation as a New Haven cop on March 18. In a letter to Acting Chief Renee Dominguez, Ryken credited elected officials for pushing him off the force.
“Since January 4, 2016, I have had the pleasure of serving the City of New Haven and the Hill South neighborhood, where I fostered and facilitated lasting relationships with community members, colleagues, and supervisors. Being a police officer has provided me with a unique perspective on life and taught me the value of humility, for which I will be forever grateful,” Ryken wrote in the resignation letter.
“Unfortunately, I felt this decision was forced as police officers in the State of Connecticut are under siege by local, and state elected officials. The term ‘Defund the Police’ has become a driving factor in my decision to leave. In New Haven alone, our budgeted strength was decimated last budget cycle with proposed additional cuts in the coming year. My life, the life of my fellow officers, as well as the public deserve better. We all should demand better.
“I am excited to join a police department in a state that embraces ‘Law and Order’, and will continue my police career there.”
Conway’s department streamed Ryken’s swearing in via Facebook Live. “Officer Ryken, welcome home!” the department wrote on the post.
Lawlor: Arkansas Is More Dangerous
New Haven Police Commissioner Michael Lawlor disagreed with Ryken’s depiction of Arkansas as being a better environment for cops.
“Arkansas is a much more dangerous place than Connecticut” based on crime rates, said Lawlor. “There’s a lot more crime. Police are in a lot more danger,” Lawlor said. “Since [2004], 11 police officers have been shot and killed in Arkansas.” The last time a cop was shot and killed in Connecticut was 2004. Only Vermont has gone longer without a fatal shooting of an officer, Lawlor said.
Here are Arkansas’s crime stats. Here are Connecticut’s.
Lawlor made the Nutmeg-Wonder State comparison during a conversation Wednesday with host Babz Rawls-Ivy and WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. (Watch the full conversation in the above video. Lawlor appears at the 16-minute mark)
The conversation took place the morning after a Minneapolis jury convicted Officer Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd.
“Some bad cops will walk away from the job” as a result of the verdict, Lawlor predicted. (He was speaking generally, not referring to Ryken.)
He called the Chauvin verdict a victory for “good cops” and a “wake-up call” to bad cops when it convicted Officer Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd.
Lawlor has a unique perspective on policing: He worked as a state prosecutor. Then he wrote and passed laws as an East Haven state representative heading the legislature’s Judiciary Committee. Then he crafted then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s “Second Chance Society” criminal-justice reforms. Today he teaches criminal justice at University of New Haven and serves as a New Haven police commissioner and on the Police Officer Standards and Training Council.
“The verdict yesterday should be a wake-up call to anybody in law enforcement who thinks they’re above the law,” Lawlor told Rawls-Ivy.
But “it’s not good enough to blame the bad cops,” he said: Legislators and others must “accelerate reform. It’s important to say: We’re trying to do everything we can to help the good police. And there are a lot of them, who are emboldened by this verdict. … You saw the police leaders testify at the trial. You saw an excellent job by career prosecutors. They are role models for the good cops out there. Some bad cops will walk away from the job.”
“The real winners of the verdict yesterday are the good cops out there.”
Cops complain to him that they’re being blamed for the misdeeds of rogue officers like Chauvin, Lawlor said. Why should they be blamed? they ask.
Lawlor responds with a story about when he served in the legislature and a governor and mayor went to jail for corruption, tainting all elected officials.
“Because of things [Gov.] John Rowland and [Bridgeport Mayor] Joe Ganim did, I had to vote for changes that made my life more difficult,” Lawlor said he tells officers. His point: “Bad apples” do “spoil the bunch,” and everyone needs to work toward changing the system for the better.
In his view, that includes doing away with “qualified immunity” laws that make it near-impossible for civilians to successfully sue officers who abuse them.
“At the end of the day, they will benefit from” reforms, Lawlor argued. “You need to find a way to restore confidence, not just in the police, but in the criminal justice system. We have a lot of work ahead of us to deal with damage.”
Lawlor said he saw reform succeed in East Haven. The Justice Department won convictions against officers there who were beating and fabricating evidence against people of color. It struck a consent-decree agreement to reform the department. New leadership came on board. Crime went down. So did complaints.
“I hope this is the ushering in of a new day. I feel I am under a terrorist state,” reflected Rawls-Ivy, a former member of New Haven’s Board of Police Commissioners. “I don’t say that to paint every police officer with that brush. I do believe that good police officers got to say more and do more to show that. I don’t like when there are police cars behind me. I have anxiety about that.”
Ted Littleford