Lt. Sydney Collier is leaving his perch as top cop in New Haven’s “WEB” district to join a former colleague in Virginia.
Collier, a onetime Independent “Cop of the Week,” was wooed to a top position of the Richmond, Va., force by its new chief, Bryan Norwood. Norwood was most recently chief of the Bridgeport police department; before that, he was New Haven’s assistant chief.
Collier will serve as Norwood’s chief of staff in Richmond, helping him craft a community policing strategy, according to an article in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch. (Collier was off work Tuesday and couldn’t be reached for comment.) Collier is scheduled to start his Richmond job on Jan. 5, according to the article.
His departure leaves a void in the New Haven “WEB” district, which stands for the Whalley, Edgewood and Beaver Hill neighborhoods.
Collier took over as WEB district manager on July 1. The district, which has perhaps the most vocal citizen management team in town, has gone through three different district managers in the last year. Before assuming the WEB post, Collier ran the department’s firearms and family services units.