Paul Bass Photo
Anastasio (front center) at CompStat.
A strung-out-looking face appeared on the screen. Sgt. Vincent Anastasio took a good look. Three hours later, that good look took a burglar off the streets just as she hit town.
The good look and the arrest took place Tuesday. It wasn’t a big-headline arrest. Rather, it showed what can happen when New Haven’s top cops gather every week to share photos and information about little problems brewing in neighborhoods, before they become big problems.
New Haven’s cops started doing that five weeks ago. As part of a larger effort to revive community policing, the department started holding meetings of all district managers and division heads every week, instead of every six weeks. And they invited a large group of other cops and representatives of other law enforcement and community agencies into the room. The meetings, previous called Tasca, also got a new name: CompStat. (Read about all that here.)
At Tuesday morning’s meeting, Lt. Marty Tchakirides (pictured) had a photo of a down-and-out-looking 48-year-old woman named Vickie projected on a screen for the whole room to see. The woman is a drug addict who lives in the suburbs and has a history of committing burglaries in other towns. She often works as a team with a son in his 20s..
Just Monday, Vickie and her son showed up in Westville. Tchakirides discovered that fact after the owner of a Yale Avenue home called the cops to report a suspicious visit by a blond-haired woman.
She appeared at his back door. She had a young man and a puppy with her. She knocked on the back door. And knocked. And knocked.
The owner was busy downstairs in the basement. Eventually he came upstairs. She told him she works for Petco. She said she was looking for house “number 57” (nowhere near that house) to drop off a puppy. He told her she had the wrong house.
Then he noted her license plate number. He gave it to the cops. Which is how Tchakirides discovered the woman was in town. He worried that she would start committing burglaries here.
That’s why he brought up her case at CompStat. In case anyone else sees her.
Fast forward to 1 p.m. Across town, near the East Haven border, a neighbor called the cops to report a “suspicious” vehicle on Huntington Street near Main Street. The area is known for attracting people who buy and use drugs on the block.
The East Shore’s top cop, Sgt. VIncent Anastasio, drove over. He saw the car, a Hyundai Electra. He noticed a middle-aged white woman inside. He noted the plate. He parked nearby to run the plate and registration.
Vickie’s name came up.
“I said, ‘Wow. I just heard that name.’ I’m tossing it in my head,” he recalled. Then it hit him: He’d heard the name and seen the picture at CompStat.
He called Tchakirides to confirm. Tchakirides noted that the woman has an outstanding arrest warrant from Branford. (According to a state database, she is currently facing or has pleaded guilty to various larceny, ID theft, and interfering charges in cases dating back to 2007.)
At that point Anastasio looked back at the Hyundai. It had pulled away.
He put out a broadcast. One of his officers, David Murgo, spotted the car nearby on Townsend Avenue. He followed it onto Park Lane, pulled the driver over. Anastasio arrived at the scene.
They asked the woman to get out of the car. As she did, according to Anastasio, a plastic bag fell to the ground. It contained six mini-bags of crack, two of heroin, he said. The police arrested her both for the outstanding warrant and for drug possession. Little problem solved.
“Westville and East Shore — how much farther can you get in New Haven?” Tchakirides said. “We all work together.”
Both district managers credited the CompStat meeting for helping them move quickly to solve the impending problem with Vickie.
The district managers did share photos and pending concerns at the old Tasca meetings. But because they took place only every six weeks, lots of cases would pile up, and smaller ones like this one could get lost in the shuffle. Or they could just take longer to get on everyone’s radar, Anastasio noted. And by that time a burglar could have gotten away with … well, burglary.