HARTFORD, Conn. — A video tweeted out by Hartford police is being called insensitive and triggering by some members of the community. Hartford police are calling it a lesson learned.
The 15-second video tweeted out by Hartford police has been viewed more than 260K times. It shows police recruits walking in formation along Park Street in the city’s heavily Latino Frog Hollow neighborhood on police recruit ‘Community Day.’ It’s been criticized for its optics.
“You can’t seem like you are intimidated by the crowd. Why does it take 30 of you to walk down the street together like this? Are you scared of us? What are you here then?,” asked Ivelisse Correa, the Vice President of BLM 860.
Social media comments include, ”This looks like the neighborhood is being occupied,” and, “community policing or show of force?” Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody said it’s, “Not a good video representation of what community day for our recruits was all about.”
He explained to FOX61 that the recruit community day seeks to get recruits outside the academy and exposed to the streets on which they’ll serve. The day included learning about housing assistance, mental health resources and programs for the homeless from community stakeholders. The recruits are wearing duty belts, but they carry fake weapons.
“That doesn’t mean that we hit the mark every time,” said Thody.
The video itself was posted by a young, African American Sergeant who grew up and lives in Hartford. He took a few days off to reflect on the community's reaction to the video that Hartford police chose not to take down.
“I don’t think that pulling it down does anyone a service,” said Thody, who also said he has learned lessons from the comments. “One of them was to break them into smaller groups. Less intimidating. They weren’t marching they were just walking in formation but to some people that can be intimidating and trigger some people so we might not have thought about that before.”
Leaders of Hartford’s minority community shared their definition of what community policing is.
“We want you to eat at our restaurants. We want you to go to our community events as civilians. We want you to shake hands with us and get to know us as people,” said Correa.
This class of 35 cadets will graduate in a few weeks. 18 of the cadets are from Hartford and of those 18, 72% are minority recruits.
Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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