By Michael Dinan
Staff Writer
December 7, 2005
Former police Chief Peter Robbins said yesterday he was disappointed by Monday's dismissal of the department's Honor Guard and called for his successor and the first selectman to meet with the police union to air mounting grievances.
Chief James Walters disbanded the Honor Guard be-cause its 15 members elected not to appear at the Board of Selectmen's swearing-in ceremony at Greenwich Library.
"I did not want to see this happen and I hope there's some reconciliation to this decision," Robbins said. Robbins, who founded the Honor Guard, retired in 2002 after 32 years in the department, including five as chief. "It's unfortunate, and it's certainly not the way for either side to deal with the problem."
"I think we need to see our leaders taking positions, including the police chief and first selectman," Robbins added. "I think our public expects that from our elected officials and from the police department. It's a great department and a great community and these things can't linger on because all they're going to do is cause further distractions. It's not good for the image of the police department or the town of Greenwich."
Members of the police officers' union, the Silver Shield Association, were picketing outside the library during the ceremony, to protest First Selectman and Police Commissioner Jim Lash's decision not to meet with them and discuss their mounting grievances with Walters. Honor Guard members belong to the union.
Told of Robbins' comments yesterday, Walters said, "I am also disappointed that it's come to this and I've worked with the Shield in every way possible to come up with resolutions and I'll continue to do so."
The union's grievances with Walters have prompted two votes of no confidence in the chief, and include payroll and personnel issues, as well as recent citations from the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
Sgt. James Bonney, the union's president, said his group's grievances cannot be resolved by talking to Walters alone. Rather, Bonney said, union members must speak directly to Lash because of the role he plays in the police department's budget -- a budget Bonney criticized as leading to insufficient training, equipment and numbers of police on the streets.
"I don't know if it's outside pressure or he (Walters) is doing it himself, but that's something we want to discuss with the first selectman face to face," Bonney said.
Lash, who is out of town this week, could not be reached for comment.
Acting First Selectman Peter Crumbine declined to respond to Robbins' comments. Crumbine did voice his support for Walters.
"It was disappointing not to have the Honor Guard there (at the library)," Crumbine said. "Not only was the police Honor Guard not there, but they blocked the fire department's Honor Guard as well."
Selectman Penny Monahan, a police secretary for nearly four decades, could not be reached for comment.
Lt. John Novak, president of Firefighters Local 1042, said the fire department's Honor Guard informed Fire Chief Sandy Anderson in advance that it wouldn't appear at the swearing-in.
"We won't cross a brother union's picket line," Novak said. "He (Anderson) understood our position."
Anderson could not be reached for comment.
Novak said the police department's Honor Guard is older and larger than the fire department's.
Robbins said he felt, even before Walters' dismissal of the Honor Guard, that the union, Walters and Lash should sit down behind closed doors and resolve their differences.
"We do not need to see this taking place in the open press," Robbins said.
Robbins founded the Honor Guard in 1998, he said, "to build an esprit de corps in the police department, which you do in military units and larger police agencies."
"A lot of people in the department had prior military experience, so we picked certain people to become part of this Honor Guard because it was needed to lead parades, for funerals of retired police officers and, hopefully never, active police officers killed in the line of duty," said Robbins, whose own father, former police Chief David Watson Robbins, was laid to rest in the presence of the department's Honor Guard nearly four years ago.
"These people take great pride. It's a very important part of the police family and people look to that in law enforcement agencies, particularly in Greenwich."
Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.