Interim Police Chief Renee Dominguez (right) with Mayor Elicker on Friday.
The Elicker Administration has picked a California-based search firm to help the city look across the nation for a new permanent police chief.
Mayor Justin Elicker made that announcement Friday afternoon during a press conference on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
While most of the presser was dedicated to top local law-enforcement officials reviewing recent gun-related arrests (see more below), Elicker began the conference by announcing that his administration has settled on a search firm to help the city find a replacement for Interim Police Chief Renee Dominguez.
That firm is called Ralph Andersen & Associates.
Elicker said the city picked that company last week — after it was the only firm to respond to a request for proposals (RFP) that the city put out in mid-January and that closed on Feb. 1.
“We’re working on the contract right now. It’s not yet finalized,” the mayor said about the city’s selection of Ralph Andersen & Associates.
The announcement of the city’s selection of search firm to help look for a new police chief comes 74 days after the Board of Alders rejected Acting Chief Dominguez’s nomination to serve as permanent chief, 70 days after Dominguez announced her plans to retire after the city finds a replacement, and 42 after Rev. Boise Kimber launched a lawsuit against the city for allegedly violating the City Charter by keeping Dominguez in place as acting chief indefinitely with no active plans to find her replacement. (In previous interviews, Elicker has said that he has the legal authority to keep Dominguez in her acting position indefinitely because he met the Charter’s requirement that he submit her name to the Board of Alders for a vote within six months of her stepping into the“acting” role.)
Mayor Elicker.
At Friday’s press conference, Elicker said that, once the city’s contract with Ralph Andersen & Associates is finished and signed, the search firm and the city will begin a “community engagement process” that will consist of a “community survey” as well as a separate survey of the New Haven Police Department.
Those surveys will ask both groups for feedback on “what we all believe important attributes are for the future chief that will lead our city’s police department.”
He said the newly tapped firm “will engage in more targeted stakeholder conversations” and will host “several community meetings in partnership with us” during this process.
He said that this search firm has worked on police chief searches in Cleveland, Columbus, Austin, Fresno, Boise, and Dallas. “They have strong credentials,” he said.
Asked if he will tap a citizen committee to help put with this police chief search as well, Elicker replied, “I am the mayor, and people have elected me to choose the police chief.
“We have a public input process in the beginning to collect input on the attributes we want to see in our next police chief. The firm and our team will take that input into account as we look across the nation for eligible and appropriate people.”
Elicker said he will then present a proposed new police chief to the Board of Alders, as required by the City Charter, and the Board of Alders will then undertake its “public hearing process” before taking a final vote on the mayor’s pick.
An email press release sent out by the mayor’s office Friday afternoon said that city Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle will oversee the police chief search process for the city.
“While we would have preferred that more firms responded to our solicitation,” Rush-Kittle is quoted as saying in that press release, “we recognize the difficulties presented by this recruitment in a very competitive market nationally and are pleased to have attracted a firm who both understands the market and has a vast network of contacts in the industry.”
6 Weeks, 15 Nonfatal Shootings, 0 Homicides
Also at Friday’s press conference, Interim Chief Dominguez and Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson gave the following gun violence and arrest updates:
• The city has seen 15 nonfatal shootings and 0 homicides so far this year. That’s in comparison to 13 nonfatal shootings and 7 homicides at this point last year. Police have seized 29 firearms and made 26 firearm-related arrests so far this year’s. That’s in comparison to 19 guns seized and 21 gun-related arrests at this time last year.
• City police recently arrested and charged a man with first-degree assault and criminal possession of a firearm after several months of investigating a shooting incident that took place on Oct. 8, 2021, in the Hill. Dominguez said that police received a 911 emergency call at 12:15 that early morning about a person shot in the backyard of a Washington Avenue house. When police arrived on scene, they couldn’t find the victim. Shooting task force member Officer Bleck Joseph took the lead on the case. He ultimately found out that the victim had fled to South Carolina, where he received medical attention for a gunshot wound. Bleck was later able to identify, arrest, and charge a suspect.
• On Feb. 9, police worked with federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials to surveil a corner store at Davenport Avenue and Baldwin Street that Jacobson described as “a problem location for us for drug sales and violence in the Hill.” Police observed “criminal activity” at the scene, and later stopped and arrested a man who allegedly had a stolen gun, 100 folds of fentanyl-laced heroin, and 60 bags of crack cocaine in his car.
• Yale police are still searching for Anton Sovetov, a 44-year-old Yale employee who has been missing since Feb. 5.
Click on the video above to watch the full press conference.