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Chief Jacobson: "This collaboration is what we need in law enforcement today."
Question: What do Woodbridge and Wallingford and Orange and Ansonia and Yale and Naugatuck and Hamden have in common?
Answer: Their police departments are all working together to combat car thefts that “know no [town] borders,” as part of a regional task force spearheaded by New Haven.
City, state, and suburban law enforcement leaders and elected officials crowded into the third floor of New Haven police headquarters Friday afternoon to announce that new effort.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson said the task force is led by New Haven Police Lt. Derek Werner and officially started on Oct. 12. It includes at least two officers from each participating police department, including New Haven, Ansonia, East Haven, Hamden, Naugatuck, North Haven, Orange, Wallingford, West Haven, Woodbridge, and Yale, as well as the state police force.
He said the task force meets several times a week and follows schedules put together by Werner. The car theft task force officers’ responsibilities are to “participate in regular meetings, share information and intelligence, coordinate joint operations to enforce related local and state laws, identify and apprehend those engaging in these illegal activities, and connect juveniles to services and supports to help redirect them from this behavior,” according to a city press release sent out on Friday.
“This collaboration is what we need in law enforcement today,” Jacobson said. “The people committing these crimes know no borders.”
All of these police departments and elected leaders working hand in hand on this issue is “testimony to the fact that people listen when New Haven speaks,” Yale Police Chief and former New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell said. “There is a great level of authority and power here.”
Jacobson said that, so far this year, there have been 884 reported car thefts in New Haven. That actually represents a 15 percent decrease from this time last year, he said, with manufacturer software updates to Kias and police use of car theft-prevention tools like Stop Sticks and StarChase and drones working to curb those numbers. Nevertheless, he and Elicker said, these car thefts are dangerous, disruptive, and destructive. “This is a violent activity,” Elicker said.
Jacobson said police have arrested 121 juveniles so far this year for car thefts in New Haven. Since officially forming on Oct. 12, this new task force has made 14 arrests and retrieved nine stolen cars.
“Us working together works,” Mayor Elicker said. He stressed the importance of investing in jobs and resources and other safe and productive opportunities for young people, while at the same time recognizing that “we need to have some sort of accountability” for the small set of young people who steal cars again and again and again.
City crime data CompStat reports show that car thefts have indeed declined since last year, even as they are still significantly higher than in recent years.
The most recent CompStat report, which goes through the week ending Oct. 20, states that there were 793 car thefts at that point so far this year, in comparison to 982 at that same time in 2023.
Other end-of-year CompStat reports state that there were more than 1,100 car thefts in New Haven in 2023, 614 in 2022, 608 in 2021, 721 in 2020, and 689 in 2019.
Police chiefs and town leaders from Greater New Haven attend Friday's presser.
Yale Chief Campbell: "People listen when New Haven speaks."