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It means a lot of responsibility. Means a lot of people in a large community are counting on me, and I think I'm up for the challenge, and I'm ready for the challenge.
It wasn't something I really aspired to be, but as I went up the ranks, I was told, "Keep going because we need you." And when your people say, "We need you," it's important, and not just officers. Community members, please stay with us, be the assistant, move up the ranks. So it was really important to get this done. I felt like I had to. I had a community to not let down, and I had a large group of officers to not let down.
By going through this process and getting this job, your top priority now that you're in the big chair, is what? Rebuild Community Trust. With the recent incident with Mr. Cox, we need to rebuild community trust and move on from that and show our community that that's not who we are, that we are the police officers that walk a beat, help them, help them with every problem, and that we care because we do care.
First, continuing on the Mr. Cox theme, this coming Friday, obviously there's going to be a rally, a protest, a march from Stetson Library to the police station. Are you embracing that, and if so, how? So, yeah, absolutely. I've talked to the organizers. We've had conversations. We're going to have officers on to block off the roads, and we're going to allow them to give speeches in front of the Police Department. And whatever, you know, it's their right to do that, and I think it's important. I think it's important for us to embrace them. You know, I'll be out front with the group with a couple of the people in my command staff, and we're here to show support in the way of we want the right thing just to happen as well.
You plan to deliver a message to those who are on hand on Friday. Well, it's not my thing, but if they ask me to speak, of course, of course.
With the walking beat, as part of your overall community policing plan, getting back to that, is that going to require more officers to be able to achieve that? Yes, absolutely. I think we can get it done right now. It won't be as extensive as I'd like it to be, but we can start walking next week, and we will. But a department that has regular walking beats has to be larger than we are, you know. I plan on doing after my first year, after the first couple of years, deployment studies and being able to tell you why we need more officers, but I can tell you now, we definitely need more officers. And we're in the middle of, we graduate a class tonight, 20 more people, and I think that's great. The entire department's excited about it. It eases some of the pressure on some of the younger officers who've been held over, and it gets us to, that gets us closer to the point of regular walking beats.
How do you attract and retain officers? Because, you know, we know for a long time you guys have been down to 80 to 100 cops with retirements and new classes, they're kind of offsetting each other. Well, I know that the, I've been to leadership schools and studies on retainment and recruitment. The biggest recruiting tool is your officer saying, "Hey, I worked there. It's a nice place to work. I like it here." So we need to get to that. We need to work with our officers, take care of our officers, their mental health, get to a place where we're not having them work so many hours so that my biggest recruiting tool, my officers themselves, can start doing that. Retainment-wise, we have contract negotiations coming up. Our contract expired June 30th, and you know, myself and the mayor and the staff from the city has to get work with the union and sustain, get a contract that's sustainable and keeps people here. Some officers have said, "You know, I'm out. I'm retiring or I'm going to another department because I'm not going through another three-plus-year negotiation." I'm sure it's a goal of yours to work with the mayor to try to streamline this process. Absolutely. We need a contract immediately, and we're going to work as hard as possible to get a contract. When you let it go for three years, you're right, we lost a lot of officers during that period of time, and then we came around the corner and started to build up again. And then the pandemic kind of knocked us down again. So I'm excited about getting a contract on. I'm excited about getting the officers things that they need, things that they want, and moving forward as quick as possible.
Everybody from all walks of life, whether it was last week when they came in here and spoke during the committee meeting, all supported you and said, "This is a dude who gets it. He is someone who loves our community." How did you come to love New Haven so much and take so much pride in the city? Well, first and foremost, I love to be a police officer. That's when I left nine and a half years of behind in East Providence. I loved my job, and I thought I wanted to move closer to my kids who were living in Connecticut. And I thought, "It doesn't, I just want to be a police officer." And then I saw New Haven, and I saw the walking beats, and I saw the community policing aspect, and I said, "That's where I want to go." You know, I had lots of people tell me, "Go to the state police or go to Hartford." I just saw what New Haven did, and I wanted to be part of it, and it became contagious for me. I'm very passionate about being a police officer and doing everything possible to shed positive light on the police, for the police and the community to be good together. As you can see, all those people showed up because that's been my, what I've done my entire career, you know. And it was kind of like a, a wild moment for me. I said, "Wow, look at all the hard work you put in, it paid off, you know." And it was just about being good to people. That's all it's about. Be good to people, help them. Be the police officer that you want, that officer that shows up for your mother, your sister, your brother. Be that guy. And it's not that hard, but sometimes we, you know, through overworking and mental health, and we forget that. But it is easy, and we're going to start really working towards that again.
A lot of people have said, "Being good to people, common sense is what should have happened in the Richard Cox situation." Common sense? You know, tell the guy to grab. And I know you can't talk about the investigation, but that seems to fall in line with now. With the vans, are they all outfitted with seatbelts yet? Are they still out of service? Yes, so we're going to go into that deeply tomorrow. I believe we're having a press around that, but two of the vans are outfitted with seatbelts. We're working on the third one. We've changed some special orders, so we're moving in the right direction on that. But there's more to it than that, right? It's not just about vans and seatbelts. It's about respect and humanity. And what I've been saying since the moment the mayor nominated me is procedural justice and legitimacy. And you build that by giving people a voice. If we gave Mr. Cox a voice, we wouldn't have a protest Friday. Treat them with dignity. If we treat them with dignity, we wouldn't have a protest Friday. You know, the other tenet is neutrality and decision-making. So you go to a call, and you have two sides. You just don't pick one side or the other. You listen to both, and you'll be neutral in your decision-making. And that, in turn, builds trust. And and that's very, sounds very simple, but it's not easy. But we need to get back to that. Those simple tenets, walking beats, procedural justice, and we can move forward from this incident and be the police department that the community wants.