By Don Stacom
Courant Staff Writer
BRISTOL, Conn. — City officials fired one police officer Thursday night and suspended another after concluding they had conspired to retaliate against a security guard who had lodged a complaint against one of them.
Officers Greg Blackinton and Brian Andrews singled out the guard for a motor vehicle summons this summer because he had recently initiated a complaint against Blackinton, according to the police administration.
“Citizens should be free to make a complaint against an officer without fear of the officer going after them,” Chief John DiVenere said. “Retaliation is at the heart here.”
But about 40 off-duty police officers held a rally in support of Blackinton and Andrews, with union leaders saying the punishment was far out of proportion to the charges. The union’s attorney argued that the motor vehicle summons against guard Philip Pelletier was entirely legitimate, and accused police administrators of having the ticket quashed before it ever reached court.
“This wasn’t retaliation, it was a police officer doing his job and enforcing the law,” said union President Peter Kot, who vowed to appeal the firing and suspension. “This is going to have a chilling effect on our officers and their morale. It shows a lack of support from management.”
The union immediately announced it would appeal Blackinton’s dismissal before an arbitration panel, and fight to overturn Andrews’ suspension at the state labor board.
“When I was a cop, they didn’t call this collusion or retaliation, they called it police work,” union attorney Richard Gudis II told the board of police commissioners at the hearing. “Had Mr. Pelletier not been breaking the law, this would be retaliation. But Mr. Pelletier was actually breaking the law.”
Police supervisors began investigating in July after two citizens complained about Blackinton’s behavior in unrelated incidents.
In one instance, a woman said Blackinton and Andrews refused her demand to talk with a supervisor after Blackinton pulled her car over. The police department’s policies require officers to comply when a civilian asks to talk with a supervisor.
Separately, Pelletier, a guard at a Route 6 shopping center, complained that Blackinton wouldn’t chase away two boys who were creating a disturbance at a supermarket, and then refused his request to call in a supervisor. Two weeks after that happened, Blackinton and Andrews exchanged messages about Pelletier over computer terminals in their patrol cars, with Blackinton encouraging Andrews to stop him for a motor vehicles violation, according to an internal affairs investigator. Andrews stopped Pelletier and charged him with failing to register his car in Connecticut, a violation that carries a potential fine of up to $300.
“Officer Blackinton colluded and conspired with Officer Andrews to have Officer Andrews stop, detain and arrest the security guard in retaliation for his complaint,” said Ursula Haerter, a labor attorney retained by the city. She described their actions as “egregious violations of the code of conduct that strike at the heart of public trust in law enforcement.”
But Gudis told police commissioners that Haerter failed to acknowledge Pelletier had been driving with New York plates, despite working in Bristol and listing the city as his residence on a police report. Just last month, Mayor William Stortz told DiVenere that police should do more to enforce vehicle registration laws because Bristol was missing out on tax revenue from cars wrongly registered in other states.
Blackinton, a seven-year veteran of the department, was fired effective immediately, and Andrews, a four-year veteran, was suspended for 45 days without pay. Both had been on paid administrative leave since DiVenere conducted preliminary hearings two weeks ago.
The police union said retaliation was at the center of Thursday night’s case, but not the way that city officials claimed. Instead, the union said the city was punishing Blackinton and Andrews for filing a federal lawsuit against Capt. Daniel McIntyre over the case.
The two officers allege McIntyre violated their constitutional rights by having investigators hold them incommunicado for eight hours while interrogating them about the case. McIntyre has denied the charges.
Copyright 2007 Hartford Courant