by Paul Bass | August 20, 2007
A national team of experts hired after March's police scandal called Monday for a wholesale change in "culture" at 1 Union Ave. to respond to a public that wants community policing back.
Detailed recommendations for how to do that came in a 97-page draft report released by the Police Executive Research Forum. City Hall hired PERF for $130,000 to study systemic problems at the police department after the FBI arrested two narcotics cops on bribery and theft charges.
The PERF draft report repeated what citizens from Dixwell to Beaver Hills and Edgewood have been saying for months: The public has lost confidence in community policing, and in the department's ability to investigate or hold itself accountable.