Thomas Breen photos
Jacobson after vote with board Majority Leader Richard Furlow.
Cops who showed up to support Jacobson Tuesday night.
The Board of Alders voted unanimously to confirm Karl Jacobson to become the city’s next police chief, praising him for integrity, humility, and community connections — and calling him the leader needed at a time when “a healing has to take place between the community and the police department.”
That vote took place Tuesday night during the latest regular monthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The in-person meeting was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
As two dozen fellow officers and grassroots community leaders watched on in support, the alders voted 21 – 0 to approve Mayor Justin Elicker’s nomination of Jacobson to be the next chief of the New Haven Police Department (NHPD).
A 15-year NHPD veteran who is currently the city’s only assistant chief, Jacobson will succeed current Acting Chief Regina Rush-Kittle as the head of the department. His term as police chief runs through Jan. 31, 2026.
West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith: The community respects him.
“Mr. Jacobson is a man of integrity,” West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith said as she urged her colleagues to vote in support of Jacobson’s nomination. “He’s a loyal man. He’s a man that is respected by many in the City of New Haven.”
Smith and Downtown/Yale Alder Alex Guzhnay noted just how many different people came out to support Jacobson during his aldermanic confirmation hearing — from mothers of homicide victims to rank-and-file police officers to grassroots community organizers to someone he once arrested and helped readjust to life after prison.
Mayor Elicker also referenced Jacobson’s diverse, grassroots support in a press release released after the vote: “As we saw in the public testimony at last week’s committee hearing and in today’s unanimous vote by the full Board of Alders, Karl Jacobson is deeply respected and supported by both the New Haven community and the New Haven Police Department. I am confident that, building on that trust, Karl Jacobson will be able to provide the police department with the long-term leadership that both our residents and officers need and deserve.”
“He will bring the department to a new era, which will be much better,” Smith said during her speech from the floor Tuesday night. “He will give the people a voice.”
Tuesday's Board of Alders meeting.
Tuesday night’s vote came roughly a month and a half after Elicker first tapped Jacobson for the top-cop role — which in turn followed a months-long national search for a new chief to replace Interim Chief Renee Dominguez, whose nomination the Board of Alders rejected last December.
It also comes as the city and the police department reckon with the case of Richard “Randy” Cox, a 36-year-old New Havener who remains hospitalized and paralyzed after sustaining a severe injury to his spine while in police custody on June 19. Cox’s case has placed the city’s department in the national spotlight — and will present an early test of Jacobson’s newly confirmed leadership to see if he can change the policies, the training, and the culture that led local police to so painfully disregard Cox’s wellbeing.
Five officers involved in the case have already been put on paid administrative leave, and the state police are conducting a criminal investigation.
Hugging it out after the vote with Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate ...
... Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller ...
... and cop-community-event organizer Daniel Hunt.
“I want to be the person that restores that community trust” in the police, Jacobson said after Tuesday’s vote. He emphasized the importance of “procedural justice,” a criminal justice theory that argues that successful law enforcement stems from the public’s perception that police treat them fairly in day-to-day interactions and therefore are acting with legitimacy. After all that has happened to Cox, Jacobson said, the department has much work to do — not just in regard to installing seatbelts in conveyance vans, but also in regard to reviewing policies and protocols to make sure something like this never happens again.
Jacobson said that he plans on promoting and appointing two new assistant police chiefs on July 15.
Newhallville Alder Devin Avshalom-Smith.
Every alder who spoke up at Tuesday night’s meeting praised Jacobson for his authenticity, his hard work, and his commitment to the community he serves and lives in.
“When he says something, he’ll do it,” Newhallville Alder Devin Avshalom-Smith said about Jacobson. He praised him as a “man of action.”
Quinnipiac Meadows Alder and retired former NHPD Capt. Gerald Antunes said that the goals that Jacobson laid out in his confirmation hearing — including increasing walking beats, making sure all cops have business cards with their names and phone numbers on them, and hosting more cop-community events — were “well-thought out,” “numerous,” and “attainable.”
He said that Jacobson embodies the policing philosophy of: “The police are the public and the public are the police.”
Jacobson with Police Union President Florencio Cotto outside City Hall after Tuesday's vote.
“You know, we are hurting in New Haven,” Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez said. “But we’re getting better. We’re all working very hard to make the department what it needs to be.” Jacobson, with his commitment to community policing, is the right person to lead at this time, she said.
Hill Alder Ron Hurt agreed: “In this city, a healing has to take place between the community and the police dept. And I say tonight, with this appointment, the healing can begin.”