Four districts across town are receiving new top cops.
One of the police department’s top quality-of-life problem-solvers, Lt. Martin Tchakirides, will head the Westville/ West Hills district starting Monday. He moves there from Downtown/ Wooster Square, which he has overseen for the past five years.
For three weeks Tchakirides will do double-duty, continuing to run the downtown district, too. That’s because his downtown replacement, Lt. Rebecca Sweeney, will be in Boston during that time at a senior management training institute run by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
Sweeney moves to downtown from the Newhallville/ East Rock district. According to Assistant Chief Kenneth Gillespie, who’s in charge of naming the district managers, the city doesn’t yet have a replacement for Sweeney at her old perch. Nor has he named anyone yet for Hill South to succeed District Manager Joe Streeto, who retires June 30.
The department usually puts lieutenants in district manager slots. But at least one of the two remaining openings will probably go to a sergeant unless more lieutenants slots are filled soon, Gillespie said. “It’s a good opportunity for a sergeant who wants to move up in management.”
Tchakirides and Sweeney (pictured) both applied for the Westville/West Hills slot. They were the only applicants, according to Gillespie.
Tchakirides and Sweeney said Thursday that they’re each “excited” to take command of a new neighborhood with a new set of challenges. They’re also both returning to old turf.
Five years ago Tchakirides filled in for then-Westville/West Hills chief Peter Reichard for three months. He has run the Downtown/Wooster Square district since then.
Andy Orefice is following Tchakirides. Or vice versa. Orefice headed the Downtown/Wooster Square citizen management team while Tchakirides was the top cop there. Now Orefice has moved to Westville — and he just became head of the neighborhood management team there as well.
“I’m so excited to have [Tchakirides] come out here. I had a great working relationship with Marty,” Orefice said. “He was always really responsive. We’re looking to have that out in Westville. That’s what the neighbors have been clamoring for.”
At one point, he and other neighbors had been talking to Tchakirides about excessive noise from motorcyclists at the old Sidebar restaurant, Orefice recalled. Orefice came home one day to find a line of motorcycles illegally parked on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. He called Tchakirides — who showed right up, spoke to the restaurant owner, and succeeded in clearing the area.
Another time a Crown Street juice bar was regularly attracting a crowd getting into fights, some of them ended in shootings. “He got the head of the state liquor commission to come down and put the heat on the clubs to close down.”
Click here to read about how Tchakirides defused one fight among regulars on the New Haven Green. Click on the play arrow here and at the top of the story to watch snippets.
“It was time for a change of scenery,” Tchakirides, who has 14 years on the force, said of his decision to seek a new post. Downtown he concentrated on problems connected to nightclubs and homelessness; on the west side he’ll encounter more burglaries and other residential-related issues. “I don’t know if I even have any homeless out there,” he said.
The raucous club scene’s ongoing challenges now await Sweeney, who has spent the last three years overseeing the Newhallville/East Rock district. “I’m ready for some new challenges,” she said. She knows the turf, though; she walked a downtown evening beat 10 years ago.
East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar said Sweeney “served our district well.” He acknowledged that the department sometimes needs to focus more of its resources to the Newhallville end of the district because it reports more major crimes. He said he hopes the new district manager works with East Rockers as well to tackle speeding, “petty street crime,” and the need for walking and biking beat cops.