Allan Appel Photo
Fumiatti: Continuing a mission.
A veteran neighborhood top cop is taking on a new assignment: Helping fellow officers as well as the community deal with trauma.
Lt. Michael Fumiatti, who has served as the top Fair Haven cop for five years, is taking on that assignment as the police department’s first-ever mental health and wellness coordinator.
The Board of Alders granted a request by Police Chief Karl Jacobson to create the position, which has a twofold charge, Jacobson said.
One charge: Help officers process upsetting scenes they respond to or otherwise get help for mental health concerns. A stigma has traditionally led members of law enforcement agencies to avoid seeking help from, say, employee assistance programs or social workers for anger problems or to process, say, responding to the death of an infant. Fumiatti will track such incidents as well as help officers connect to peer support or comfort dogs or other help, Jacobson said. He observed that the younger generation of officers are more open to seeking help than old cops, reflecting a broader societal evolution.
The second charge: Tapping mental health resources to help address problems in the community that might otherwise end in nonproductive arrests. Jacobson said Fumiatti will work with groups like the city COMPASS crisis-intervention team and track specific community calls involving people with mental health challenges.
Fumiatti was already partly filling that role on the force. He was the department’s certified “crisis intervention” trainer for officers in how to respond to people with mental illness. He developed working relationships with mental health workers. Unofficially, he was a cop officers called for help in tough situations involving people with mental illness. For instance, Dixwell cops had twice conducted a hostage negotiation with a knife-wielding man who on other occasions had threatened to harm people, lay down in the middle of Dixwell Avenue, boarded a bus and announced a bomb was on board. The man was a military veteran. Fumiatti spoke with people at the Veterans Administration Hospital, who sent a social worker to help the man. The man has since received treatment, and the cops haven’t received more calls about him.
“I’m very excited,” Fumiatti said of his new posting.
New Top Neighborhood Cops
Fumiatti’s new posting coincides with a reshuffling of neighborhood top cops, aka “district managers.”
Sgt. Chris Alvarado will succeed Fumiatti as the manager of districts 8 (Fair Haven) and 9 (East Shore).
Thanks to the recent promotion of new sergeants, Jacobson was able to relieve some managers from having to cover three districts at once. A staff shortage had forced the increasing consolidation of district management into just four individuals.
As of Monday, Lt. Brendan Borer resumes supervising just Downtown’s District 1; Sgt. Jarrell Lowery will return to managing Districts 6 and 7, covering Dixwell, Newhallville, East Rock, and Cedar Hill after serving a patrol supervision stint. Lt. Brian McDermott resumes focusing on managing Westville/West Hills/West Rock’s District 2 as Sgt. John Lambe, a city native, assumes day-to-day management of Dwight/Kensington’s District 4 and the “WEB” (Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills) 10th District.
Jacobson said he hopes eventually to get back to having 10 different managers for all 10 districts.