Commission Begins Search For New Police Chief

The Police Commission does not want to waste anytime in its search for the next person to oversee the municipal department.

At its meeting Tuesday night, commission members began to layout how they will proceed with identifying and hiring the town’s next chief of police. Current announced his retirement in June.

Commission Chairman Neal Cunningham presented a plan that includes extensive advertising in a variety of media outlets, a list of interview questions compiled from search committees from other towns, and a notification to the Board of Selectman. He suggested that an interview committee be created and include a member of the police commission, the first selectman, the director of human resources, and a police chief from municipal department. The committee might also include an officer from the Windsor Locks Police Department and a member of the public at large.

Noting some possible problems with the selection of some of these members of the interview committee, commissioners agreed they should be included. Cunningham also noted that a public input session would be beneficial and that site visits should be part of the hiring evaluation.

“Given what's happened in the past year, we want to make [the search process] as wide open as possible,” Cunningham said.

The Windsor Locks Police Department has come under fire recently for the incident involving the . Former police officer Michael Koistinen was charged with driving the vehicle that struck and killed Deng.

Retiring Chief Shuchocki has said his retirement coincides with his 65th birthday and is not due to the incident.

The Frank Rudewicz on the incident and residual effect is still pending. Cunningham said, “It isn't out, we haven't got it, but we anticipate having it soon.”

The commission plans to call a special meeting in order to review the report publically.

Another component that Cunningham said would be integral to the hiring of the next chief would be the consideration of public input.

“Let the public comment on what they want from a police chief,” he said.

However, tensions arose during the public comments phase of meeting when a former officer, Michael Bracken, accused the commissioners of limiting the ability of public commentary during commission meetings.

“You are trying to reduce speech from the townspeople to 3-5 minutes. What you are trying to do is basically stifle the town because you don't like to hear what you are hearing,” Bracken said. The comments led to a brief and heated exchange, but one that ended peacefully.