Bridgeport CT recruiting police chief-no college degree necessary!
BRIDGEPORT CT June 21 2022— The city is accepting applications for a new police chief and, critics fear, repeating what a federal investigation identified as one of the decisions that tainted the 2018 search to benefit former top cop Armando Perez — not requiring candidates have a college degree.
But Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration insisted Friday the current circumstances are much different from those of four years ago.
“Rather, preference will be given to those candidates who have a commitment to continuing education,” the mayor’s office said in a statement, arguing such was not the case in 2018.
“The preferred qualifications are cited as qualities that will be given priority value during the initial screening process,” agreed the city’s consultant, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).
This week the IACP, engaged to help the personnel department recruit chief candidates and forward three finalists to Mayor Joe Ganim, released a lengthy job description with qualifications. It was compiled based on law enforcement standards, 659 responses to an online survey, three public hearings and meetings/consultations with community groups, unions, local elected leaders and other Fairfield County public safety professionals.
And while the IACP included several requirements residents deemed necessary to reform and modernize a department involved in multiple controversies and scandals over the last few years, the advertisement states a college degree is “preferred” but not a minimum requirement.
“That’s a mistake,” Councilman Scott Burns, who co-chairs a mayoral policing reform task force established in late 2020, said Friday. “Especially after what we went through.”
When Ganim’s administration last held a national search for a police chief four years ago, Perez, a close Ganim associate who was then acting chief, ultimately got the five-year contract as many expected given his experience on the force and his political ties.
Critics who felt Perez was unqualified at the time complained that a college degree was not mandated and alleged it was because Perez lacked one.
Ultimately a federal investigation concluded that Perez and then-Acting Personnel Director David Dunn had rigged the process to ensure the former was one of the three finalists whose names were forwarded Ganim. The pair were arrested in September 2020, pleaded guilty, sentenced to prison and have since been released.
The federal complaint from September 2020 detailing the case against Perez and Dunn specified how part of the plot involved the latter giving unusual instructions to the consultant used in 2018 that would only benefit Perez, like that “there should be no requirement that a candidate possess a bachelor’s degree, or any penalty for candidates who did not have one.”
“In Consultant-1’s experience, it is unusual for a police chief not to have a bachelor’s degree,” continued the complaint. “Armando Perez … does not have a bachelor’s degree and was the only applicant without one.”
Callie Heilmann, who runs Bridgeport Generation Now, a civic group that had opposed Ganim’s choice of Perez and whose leadership met recently with IACP representatives, said Friday the situation seems like a repeat of 2018.
“The first thing we think is, ‘Okay, who do they have in mind who’s unqualified for the job?’” Heilmann said. “It’s a very simple thing. Just make a bachelor’s degree a requirement.”
Heilmann, who said she otherwise was pleased with much of the job description, added it seems that anyone who meets those standards would also have a higher education.
“The requirements themselves point to somebody who has a high level of expertise, training and education,” she said. “We would love to know what the justification for it (not requiring a college degree) is beyond just increasing the pool of applications, which isn’t sufficient because we don’t need unqualified people to apply.”
And Kate Rivera, a local activist and director of operations for Women Against Mass Incarceration, said in a written statement Friday, “The community has again lost complete trust in the search process.”
“This is so disheartening! The chiefs of New Haven and Hartford are educated,” Rivera wrote. “Bridgeport deserves and will settle for nothing but the absolute best!”
She was referring to Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody’s online biography, and New Haven Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson, who New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker recently selected as that city’s next top cop.
In statements provided by Ganim’s communications office, both the IACP and the administration defended Bridgeport’s job description and requirements.
The IACP said the details were arrived at based on the “data from surveys, interviews, forums, (the city) charter/ordinances and profession-effective practices.”
Addressing comparisons to the 2018 Perez scandal, the city said, “Please remember that the controversy arose from the former personnel director (Dunn) directing the consultant not to award preference points to candidates who had continued education or advanced degrees.”
“That is not the case in this current process,” continued the city’s statement.
Also preferred, according to the job description, is candidates’ “commitment to continued professional development” through the FBI and other law enforcement entities.
During the first of the three public hearings the IACP and city scheduled this month, a few in attendance downplayed the need for a higher education.
Dr. Jessie Lee, a senior consultant for IACP, at the time responded, “If you have the passion and drive to take that education and apply it the way it needs to be applied, it makes a big difference.”
“Just having a degree is not enough,” he added later. “You have to have the passion to do your job.”
