Don’t shoot the messenger

04/01/2007

A New Haven Register Editorial

Assistant chief should be rebuilding image of police, not attacking press. Assistant Police Chief Stephanie Redding has been on a personal mission targeting the New Haven Register in the ongoing campaign by the New Haven Police Department to explain to a skeptical public the actions of two narcotics officers facing federal corruption charges.

Redding has been appearing, as have many other top police brass, at various meetings to discuss the recent arrests of Lt. William White and Detective Justen Kasperzyk, who were busted March 13 after an eight-month FBI investigation. Redding and others have the tough task of explaining to city residents why they shouldn’t lose their faith in their Police Department.

The problem is that Redding, whose husband led the internal affairs unit until Friday, can’t keep her personal feelings out of her explanation.

She has made a habit of going after the Register, criticizing headlines on police scandal stories and slamming police reporter William Kaempffer personally for quoting high-ranking officials saying there may be more arrests in the corruption case.

It isn’t the Register that is on record saying that there may be more arrests in the case, it is people such as Redding’s boss, Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr.

White faces alleged violations of nine departmental rules and regulations. Kasperzyk faces seven alleged violations. During the course of the investigation, an undercover officer cooperating with the FBI secretly recorded about 200 conversations, and agents listened on the phone conversations through wiretaps.

The city has moved to fire the two officers.

Ortiz should pull Redding aside and explain to her what her role is: not to attack the newspaper but to explain to the public why it shouldn’t lose faith in the hundreds of good cops who patrol the streets of New Haven.

Using her position as a bully pulpit to slam the Register not only is the wrong thing to do, it scars the entire department, which so badly needs to be seen in a better light by all it serves.