Markeshia Ricks Photo
Another top cop is leaving the force. Another assistant chief, in fact.
This time the person is Luiz Casanova (pictured). He has put in for retirement, effective June 30. His last working day will be a week from Friday.
“I’ve been in a uniform 28 years,” Casanova said Thursday, referring to his 23 years on the New Haven force and his five years before that as a corrections officer. “It’s time. I’ve had a great career.”
Casanova follows in the footsteps of fellow Assistant Chief Herb Johnson and former Chief Anthony Campbell, who have also retired this year; and of dozens of other cops who have been retiring or resigning amidst uncertainty about future benefits. The cops have been working without a contract for three years now; the union is in arbitration with the city on a new one.
Casanova rose steadily through the ranks of the department, including serving as a popular district manager in the Fair Haven neighborhood. He had applied to become chief in 2016 when Dean Esserman left the force and gained the public support of people in the community with whom he had worked; the job ultimately went to Campbell.
So far Casanova has not applied this time around for the chief’s position, which is currently vacant.
He does have an application in for the police chief position in Hamden, where some people are calling for an outsider to come in and help the department confront racial and officer misconduct concerns.
In 2017, Casanova sued the Harp administration in federal court, charging that he suffered continual harassment and retaliation in violation of federal law in a quest to make him retire, in part because he “opposed overt race discrimination” in the department. (Read more about that here.) The suit asked for the city to be ordered to make him the police chief.
He and the city recently reached a settlement agreement to end the suit. The agreement awaits the signature of a judge, after which point its terms can be made public.