Police chief, Wesleyan students debate purpose of police vehicle built for war

Justin Carbonella, Middletown Youth Services Bureau coordinator, and Middletown Police Chief William McKenna, speak at a panel discussion on several bills advocated by the Connecticut ACLU Wednesday night. Justin Carbonella, Middletown Youth Services Bureau coordinator, and Middletown Police Chief William McKenna, speak at a panel discussion on several bills advocated by the Connecticut ACLU Wednesday night. Photo: Brian Zahn — The Middletown Press Photo: Brian Zahn — The Middletown Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Police chief, Wesleyan students debate purpose of police vehicle built for war 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

MIDDLETOWN >> The Middletown police chief and members of the Wesleyan student body on Wednesday debated the role of an MRAP vehicle owned by the police department, as public awareness of the armored tank has spread in the community.

Police Chief William McKenna was on campus as a guest of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, with Justin Carbonella, coordinator of the Youth Services Bureau. Both McKenna and Carbonella discussed their positions on several proposed bills in the state legislature concerning their areas of expertise and departments.

After McKenna, Carbonella and ACLU-CT staff attorney David McGuire spoke on the four bills, members of the audience predominantly asked McKenna questions about his relationship to House Bill No. 1104, which concerns police militarization.

McKenna fielded several questions and concerns from students and members of the community about the MRAP, which sits most of the time in a lot behind police headquarters.

During McKenna’s discussion of the militarization bill, he said he was in favor of the police receiving equipment manufactured for the military. Through the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, which allows police departments to apply for some of the $6 trillion in military equipment made for the latest war that no longer has any use abroad — equipment ranging from clothing to weaponry to vehicles — the city’s police department applied for and received the MRAP, valued at approximately $730,000.

The armored vehicle, McKenna said, can drive through inclement weather and can be used for hostage situations, enabling officers to safely get closer to the scene of an incident than before.

“I’m for militarization,” McKenna said, “but it’s to protect citizens from violence and natural disasters.”

Several audience members took turns explaining to McKenna that they had seen the MRAP driving on city streets and describing their own skepticism about entrusting a police department to use an armored vehicle for safety purposes and not to intimidate the population it serves or for things such as minor drug busts.

McGuire said that, in matters such as police militarization, it’s perception that counts more than intent when it comes to making a community feel safe.

“It’s ultimately perception that matters, and it’s essential that the public is able to trust the police,” he said.

If House Bill No. 1104, the militarization bill, comes into law, it would require law enforcement agencies to hold a public hearing no less than 30 days before submitting an application to the 1033 Program or programs like it, submit and display a detailed inventory of military equipment and report to the Office of Policy and Management on each reason for deployment, with demographic details on each civilian encountered and the equipment used.

“In our mind, this is a very simple bill,” McGuire said, although he identified state Sen. Paul Doyle, who represents the Middletown area, as having expressed some reluctance. McGuire encouraged anyone who feels passionately about the bill to contact Doyle.

McKenna, who consistently states in public his desire to run a transparent police force, said he hoped the students would take him at his word that he never wants the MRAP to be an intimidation tool.

“I get that it is very, very intimidating, and we have no intention on using it as an intimidation tool,” he said.

According to McKenna, only four people in the department are certified to drive the vehicle, which they do infrequently for training purposes, but also to keep the engine running so the machine doesn’t break or require repairs.

When one student asked if the department could codify the vehicle’s usage and deployment, McKenna said there is already a command structure, approved by Mayor Dan Drew, that ensures that McKenna has the final say on whether the vehicle can be used.

McKenna said he appreciated the crowd’s feedback, because he feels the department could benefit from hearing what the public has to say.

“I had no idea we were making the community nervous,” McKenna said. “I wonder how we can let people know this is a serious tool.”

McKenna told the crowd that the department receives “overwhelming positive feedback” about the vehicle, which has been taken to fire departments and children’s summer camps. At least one student wondered while addressing McKenna if it’s admirable that young children are learning to be awed by a vehicle designed for war.

While extolling the virtues of how the MRAP could be used for safety purposes, McKenna said he would obtain “40 of the things if I could,” which worried some of those in attendance. Later, McKenna clarified that the department having 40 MRAPs is obviously unrealistic, and he was being hyperbolic for the purposes of demonstrating that he believes the armored vehicles are a benefit to his department and the community, rather than a detriment.

Anthony Gaunichaux, a vice president of the Middlesex branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he is a veteran and he could not understand why any police department would want to have an MRAP or any instrument conceived for war. He said his association with the vehicles is one of domestic terrorism.

McKenna repeatedly maintained that the vehicle is in his department’s possession in the hopes it might save a life one day, and he is prepared to take “any amount of heat” if he can accomplish that goal. He told Gaunichaux that the 1033 Program also could potentially provide equipment such as night vision goggles, that the department would most likely purchase with its own funds down the line, that could possibly assist in finding a young child lost in the woods in freezing weather at night.

McKenna acknowledged throughout the night that the city police relationship with Wesleyan has been strained for a long time, a tension that was renewed after five students were arrested for allegedly manufacturing “Molly,” a strain of MDMA that is believed to have led to 11 overdoses in February, and he hopes to build a relationship.

The panel also discussed House Bill 1092, which would require police departments to show probable cause before acquiring sensitive cell phone records, which enable police to track users’ locations and messages. McKenna said the difficulty to his department in reporting to individuals who are being investigated that their cell phone records are being searched is that it could potentially tip off an alleged abusive spouse that his or her partner contacted police for an investigation.

McGuire said the ACLU intends to be “pro-transparency” and not “anti-police departments” with the bills it supports.

On a bill concerning drones, McKenna said he does not intend to incorporate them into his department, although McGuire said drones in three years might not much resemble the drones of today, and it’s something police department officials could change their position on as technology improves.

Carbonella spoke on House Bill 6834, which seeks to address discipline in schools, as students of color or students who have done nothing illegal are increasingly arrested by school resource officers, assigned to patrol schools, under “zero tolerance policy” administrations.

“Zero tolerance is zero intelligence,” Carbonella said.

According to Carbonella, after a memorandum of understanding between the Board of Education and the police was signed in Middletown, arrests of students fell sharply, from 25 separate Middletown students being arrested in school in 2011-12, down to five the following year after the MOU.

Carbonella said the traditional model of discipline assumes students will only behave if they want, whereas he believes students only behave as well as they are capable. Carbonella said having a graduated discipline system will enable students to build skills.

Rosa Browne, president of the Middlesex County NAACP, asked for demographic information on the students arrested. Carbonella said of 29 students in 2011-12, a higher number because of magnet schools, 48 percent were black, 14 percent were Hispanic and 10 percent did not have their race identified. The following year, of six students, it was a 50-50 split of white and black students.