The pleas from Joanna Dubiel, a friend of a New Britain marathon runner who went out for a jog June 29 only to be run over and left for dead by a teen fleeing a gas station larceny were poignant in the East Hartford Middle School cafeteria Wednesday.
Henryk Gudelski, 53, died after two teens stole a wallet from a man at a gas station and then fled in a stolen Audi, and were pursued by the robbery victim. The vehicle the teens were driving jumped the curb on East Street in New Britain, hitting Gudelski as he was jogging on the sidewalk. Gudelski, a father of three who owned Henry’s Construction LLC, had run marathons in Athens, Poland and getting ready for the Chicago marathon.
“My friend was out running on the sidewalk, getting ready to run his 41st marathon, and he was killed. I didn’t see the video of my friend’s body. But why was he killed by a 17-year-old who was arrested 13 times in three and a half years? He’s 17. He’s not a child. Why? I never got an answer. Maybe someone here can tell me why this guy was out? And why my friend’s body was tossed across the street and left by the dumpster?”
East Hartford Police Chief Scott Sansom, who had just finished telling the audience of 80 that “what we are doing is not working” and had just met that day with a group of 30 Connecticut chiefs of police who agreed with him, approached the woman, arms outstretched to offer a hug. It was an awkward moment as she initially backed away, then reluctantly assented to the chief’s embrace.
It was far from the only awkward moment at the gathering before television cameras with a audience that included Glastonbury elected town leaders, political aspirants, defensive legislators and East Hartford uniformed police officers posted around the perimeter of the room for what East Hartford’s Mayor Marcia Leclerc called “a community forum on public safety.” Leaders of the East Hartford Crime Watch and Neighbors Helping Neighbors Facebook page took credit for getting the mayor to finally consent to hold the forum, but noted that only happened after neighboring Glastonbury held two public forums on the rash of juvenile crime and stolen vehicles in their town, including an incident where shots were fired at a homeowner attempting to chase away people trying to tamper with a car in her driveway.
The forum began with Police Chief Scott Sansom admitting “what we are doing isn’t working.” The chief unleashed an abundance of information which burst forth like water from behind a dam about personal details and his department, starting that, far from the ‘defund the police’ the department was fully supported by town leaders, but “because of one guy who killed George Floyd, we have this legitimacy problem.” Chief Sansom said the town is in the process of installing 25 cameras in 12 locations, his department was just “a small sliver of the criminal justice system,” that he had his own car broken into four times in South Windsor, could not leave his leaf blower on his front lawn or it would be gone – that’s the world we live in today” and is “one heart attack in and I’m 50 years old.”
Police Chief Sansom, who attended similar forums in Glastonbury, said police no longer engage in as many police pursuits going from 70 a year to 10 or 12, and those only for cases involving weapons. In stolen car incidents police realized that, as the juveniles would likely be released in 6 hours or less endangering the pubic or an officer’s life was not worth it. Sansom said the decision not to chase was recommended by the Police Officer Standards and Training Council, or POST, the state’s guide to law enforcement standards, was not a directive from state legislators. But he shared the lingering sentiment officers feel following the legislature’s passage of police reforms removing, then restoring, officers immunity under the law and a frustration officers and the public feel about the rise in juvenile crime, data debated during the Wednesday forum.
The chief revealed towns do not have access to a shared database of juvenile arrests in the area, judges lack updated information also.
Chief Sansom also noted when he and the department’s assistant chief, Mack Hawkins, were in Hartford – both retired from the city force before being hired by Mayor Leclerc in East Hartford – they were part of “Project Longevity” which entailed sitting down with the small group of suspected youth and giving them a “clear message: We know who you are, we know what you are doing. If you don’t stop we will come after you.”
Marc G. Bassos, Youth Outreach Coordinator / Juvenile Review and Board Manager in East Hartford, explained that the number of misdemeanor crimes including larceny and criminal trover had declined in 45 years to an all-time low in 2018. “We average 90 cases a year. Four years ago it was 150. We went from 402 arrests in 2008 to 153 arrests in 2018. Crime is not reducing, our officers are now better trained.”
Bassos, who works out of the East Hartford Youth Services office in the East Hartford Community Cultural Center, instituted a program called the Adventures Plus that covered the cost of police training. However funding for the program was allowed to run out, and the state judiciary department decided not to renew it. Bassos has been speaking with State Rep. Jason Rojas to get the program restored. It is one possible solution, but not one the audience at the middle school had the patience to wait for.
State Sen. Saud Anwar, also a pulmonologist, said he approached the problem as one of triage presenting a colorful pyramid of primary, secondary and tertiary steps to heal the community. Chief Sansom said, respectfully, the community is hemorrhaging and that his group of police leaders planned to come up with a list of recommendations for the legislature. In the meanwhile the legislature’s judiciary committee is meeting to craft legislation, Rep. Rojas told the group. Once that is finished the legislature would act, perhaps in special session, and hold public hearings on any statutory remedy.
East Hartford resident Dean Chamberland, who administers the Facebook crime watch page, wore a “We the People” shirt when the public was finally offered the chance to speak after 50 minutes. “Being a citizen comes first. We control them, they don’t control us,” Chamberland told the state legislators present. “I’ve been trying to set up this forum for three weeks,” he said. “We are many, free Americans who are willing to stand our ground. We don’t blame the mayor, or blame the police department. We blame the legislators. We ask the legislators to set up a special session.”
Chamberland wanted the so called ‘catch and release’ juvenile laws changed and blamed the legislators for voting in 2015 to reform juvenile crime statues. Chamberland concluding his criticism by asking for support for his candidacy for Republican Town Committee.
State House Majority Leader Jason Rojas bristled at the criticism, defending state lawmakers for bipartisan votes by overwhelming margins to revise the statutes.
Two members of the Glastonbury Town Council also spoke, along with representatives of the Glastonbury Safe Streets CT group. They said revising the juvenile justice system is needed before someone is hurt.
Residents from East Hartford at the meeting spoke to other concerns they have. They said police need to do a better job in communicating a recent rash of thefts of catalytic converters in neighborhoods around Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. And a nightclub that opened recently on Burnside Avenue also prompted complaints about noise and parking.
In a meeting primarily focused on the danger of uncontrolled juveniles, only one teenager took a turn on the microphone. East Hartford High School Class of 2021 graduate Charlie Botts – IV summed up the meeting as poignantly as it had begun.
“The community has PTSD. SafeStreets hit the nail on the head. That starts with the community. When the community feels brutalized that causes trauma. When someone gets arrested 14 times that is mental illness. It is a call for help and it happens on both sides of the aisle,” said Botts who is planning on attending Carnegie-Mellon University in the fall. “There are five armed cops around this room, and that already makes me nervous. It is not a good look, inappropriate. If the goal is trust this is a stark reminder that doesn’t help. We have to heal from the ground up, not to shove as many kids into jail cells as possible. Counting the number of holding cells we have doesn’t really lead to solutions.”
