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Officer Elliott.
Amid some cries that a city cop should have lost his job for sexually harassing a high school senior, John Velleca praised New Haven’s interim police chief for striking the right balance of discipline.
Velleca was addressing the case of school-based Officer Jeremie Elliott for allegedly flirting with a student at school, then showing up at her job at a smoothie joint to ask her to come home with him for a “massage,” then repeatedly Snapchatting and Facebooking here with amorous come-ons. (Read about his case here.)
Interim Chief Anthony Campbell suspended Elliott for ten days without pay, plus another three days in abeyance. He also removed Elliott from assignments in schools and on the SWAT team. Asked why he didn’t fire Elliott, Campbell told the Independent that he had to focus on misbehavior that took place while Elliott was on duty. And he noted that Elliott was not accused of committing a crime.
Velleca has been in Campbell’s shoes: He served as interim police chief in 2011. He said interim chiefs have to be careful not to set new precedents for their permanent successors.
For instance, Velleca said, he decided not to decide on whether to fire a cop while he served as interim chief; he handed the case over to his successor.
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Velleca, Droz at WNHH.
During an appearance Thursday on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program, where he serves as a resident policing expert, Velleca also said he believes Campbell made the right call. He called a ten-day suspension and removal from prized assignments serious discipline, especially when no crime is involved. He said that in the past, New Haven officers who committed similar offenses received no discipline at all.
Some commenters on an Independent article called for Elliott’s firing, as did WNHH station Harry Droz, who appeared on the program as well. Following is a transcript of an exchange between Velleca and Droz on the program:
Droz: I say you’ve got to drop the hammer on him. You said, “Ten-day is a pretty good hit.” Well you’re crazy, Velleca. For me, this is where you cross the line when you’re in a position of power with kids in a high school, and you use that power as influence over these kids. Completely crossing the line with me. If it was my daughter, I’d want to take care of it myself.
Velleca: You have to avoid visceral responses, OK? Your gut cannot tell you what to do here. Everybody’s a parent. I have a daughter as well. Anthony Campbell’s got kids as well. It’s easy to knee jerk to hit somebody with a hammer because you’re mad a them. That’s not my job as the chief. My job is to be fair.
Droz: I hear you. But in this situation, he’s speaking like a cop. I like cops. But seriously, you’ve got to hit him hard.
Velleca: I think he was hard. You have to look at this in the totality everything. Maybe Anthony Campbell is aggrieved. He might be saying the same thing when he gets home: “i have a daughter ..” But when he puts his stars on and he goes and makes this decision, he has to make it fair. He has to make it objective. He has to make it for everybody. There are people who under different chiefs have done the same thing and experienced no discipline. I’m not telling you that that’s right. But that has got to be part of his thought process.
Droz: Sometimes you have to set the precedents yourself.
Velleca: Not at the expense of the taxpayers. A lawsuit would come in the back end of it. And he would get his job back anyway.
Say hypothetically I have a sibling who is overdose don heroin. The next guy who gets caught with five bags of heroin selling on the street, I want him to go away for life. Is that appropriate?
Droz: No. What’s appropriate is to be hard on issues like this. My thing is the scale of power between somebody’s who in high school and a police officer.
Velleca: I:m not arguing with that at all.
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full episode of “Dateline New Haven,” in which Velleca also addresses a proposal for a new civilian review board as well as the recent takedown of a murderous drug gang.