Social media forum takes local police to task for lacking transparency, threatening retaliation | Connecticut & Region

One anonymous moderator of the forum said that three contributors were on the scene at the mall and were posting updates.

While Manchester Police ordinarily encrypt their radio transmissions, Journal Inquirer photojournalist Jim Michaud was also on site of the mall shooting and said he could clearly hear police communications over his public scanner.

It’s unclear if police were aware that their typically encrypted channels were open to the public during the shooting investigation.

The Sept. 12 Facebook post also alleged that Manchester Police Chief William Darby pressured Fire Chief Daniel French to instruct a fire department volunteer to cease contributing to the forum “or face consequences.”

“The root cause of this issue is the (Manchester Police Department’s) new completely encrypted radio system and Chief Darby’s seemingly obsession with restricting police communications into the public domain,” the anonymous BreakingNow administrator wrote in the post.

When the Journal Inquirer wrote a story in May about area police departments encrypting their radio communications, Manchester police would not answer any of a series of questions the JI posed.

And neither Darby nor French responded to several phone calls over a period of two weeks seeking comment regarding the recent accusations made in the BreakingNow social media post.

Unlike past public safety department heads in Manchester, Darby, who was sworn in as chief Dec. 12, 2018 and earned $146,204 in salary and benefits last year, rarely returns phone calls to the Journal Inquirer.

Doug Oberly, one of several BreakingNow moderators, told the Journal Inquirer that the intimidation faced by the Manchester Fire Department volunteer could make other contributors in town question if they should make posts on the site.

“We viewed it as a threat,” Oberly said.

While Oberly said he understands encrypted police communications are necessary in certain incidents, such as hostage situations or SWAT team operations, encrypting day-to-day police activities contradicts public officials’ claims that they want to be transparent.

“In general, police departments that encrypt completely, take away the transparency of what they’re doing,” Oberly said. “The media, the public, no one can hear what they’re doing. You basically get what they put out in a press release.”

Furthermore, Oberly said the vendor responsible for the Manchester police radio system has accused BreakingNow of “hacking” into their system to access encrypted channels. That is “impossible,” Oberly added.

A more likely explanation of the timely reporting is that when encrypted departments coordinate with other agencies — which happened during the mall shooting — they do so on an open state police channel.

Manchester General Manager Steve Stephanou defended local police, saying the allegations by BreakingNow are “completely false,” and the department is not attempting to intimidate and interfere with the First Amendment rights of the social media page contributors, as the moderators allege.

“The town values and strongly respects the role of a free press in providing vital information to the public, and its ability to rightfully hold local government accountable,” Stephanou said. “Furthermore, the town acknowledges the rights and ability of groups like BreakingNow to report in real-time on events happening in Manchester.”

However, making too much information, such as radio communications and photographs or videos public during an active and potentially violent situation, could impede the investigation and potentially identify the location of police responding to the scene, he added.

“Making this information public in real-time may threaten the safety of the community and of the emergency responders on scene, especially during incidents with active shooters,” Stephanou said. As such, the Manchester Police Department “will, at times, respectfully ask that media outlets consider limiting release of real-time public information for certain types of incident responses that may put the public and town staff at risk.”

Stephanou stressed that the top priority is to ensure the health and safety of members of the community and town staff.

Oberly noted that police communications in the state’s largest cities, where violent crimes are far more common, are open for the public to hear in real-time, raising questions about whether safety is the reason some smaller, local departments keep their communications secret.

Steven Hernandez, chairman of newly created Manchester Civilian Police Review and Relations Board, said that he was not aware of the social media post criticizing the police department, but that he would review it and make sure Darby knows the board is aware of the allegations.

He said that if there are legitimate concerns, the board would consider the next steps through its normal process.

“I would want to allow the process to move forward before I say anything public about it,” Hernandez said.

South Windsor also under fire

Meanwhile, the same social media group has also criticized the South Windsor Police Department for its delay in notifying the public of a Sept. 5 accident on Ellington Road that left one man with serious injuries that BreakingNow, which was on the scene, reported as being life-threatening.

A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle close to midnight on Labor Day, but the public wasn’t notified of the incident until BreakingNow, its followers, and other media outlets including the Journal Inquirer raised questions about it.

The South Windsor Police Department subsequently posted scant details of the incident on Facebook, but noted that the driver of the vehicle called 911 and remained on the scene.

“Under the normal course of business, under those circumstances, we wouldn’t necessarily put anything out,” Sgt. Mark Cleverdon told the Journal Inquirer when asked why media outlets weren’t notified of the serious accident on a holiday weekend. “We did not get any inquiries from the media or anyone else regarding the accident, which is why nothing went out.”

The South Windsor Police Department routinely sends email reports to media outlets several times a week without a formal request. Most of the incidents logged are domestic disputes, impaired driving, or shoplifting arrests.

The Fire Department is typically called to any motor vehicle accident resulting in injuries, but firefighters were not called to the Sept. 5 scene on Ellington Road — the same street as South Windsor Fire Department’s headquarters.

Police department policy doesn’t require calling the fire department to a crash scene with injuries, Cleverdon said, adding no one needed to be extricated from a vehicle, nor was there debris or fluids on the road requiring firefighter assistance.

The supervisor on the scene, he said, “made the determination that night” that firefighters were not required.

While the road was closed for a couple of hours overnight until the early morning of Sept. 6, both police and fire officials said firefighters could still respond to a fire or medical emergency as they all share the same dispatch center. Cleverdon called it “laughable” that dispatchers wouldn’t have been able to coordinate communications and allow firefighters to get out of headquarters to respond to a different scene, as had been suggested by BreakingNow.

Fire Chief Kevin Cooney agreed that there was no need for the fire department to respond to the Sept. 5 accident, but did note that the fire department’s policy calls for their volunteers to respond to any scene with injuries.

“Did it violate the policy? Maybe, technically, yes,” he said, but added that he understands the decision by police to not call the fire department.

Cooney said if police had notified firefighters, they would be calling a volunteer in the middle of the night to tell them the road was closed and to not come to the scene.

He said he spoke with Police Chief Kristian Lindstrom to determine if proper protocol was followed, and Cooney said he was satisfied with Lindstrom’s explanation.

While “the policy is still the policy, it was a judgement call, and I support that decision that night,” Cooney said, agreeing that the fire department’s presence wasn’t necessary.

As for encrypted police communications, which South Windsor has been doing for years, Cooney said “there’s a gray area to whether that’s beneficial or not.”

He said sometimes it’s beneficial for firefighters to hear directly from officers to get a feel of a situation from their tone, but dispatchers are able to sufficiently relay information among agencies.

“It hasn’t hindered operations at all,” Cooney said of the police department’s encrypted communications, adding that he “wholeheartedly” supports Lindstrom and local police.

While the accident report for the Sept. 5 crash has not yet been completed, South Windsor resident Sheryl Elmore said her brother-in-law, Jason Elmore, broke both tibias, a femur, and an ankle in his legs. He also bit off part of his tongue when the vehicle hit him.

He was not in a coma at Hartford Hospital, but did not regain full consciousness for about a day-and-a-half after being admitted. He was in the intensive care unit for about five days and underwent extensive surgeries to repair his legs, Sheryl Elmore said.

He entered a rehabilitation center on Monday where he is expected to spend between two and three weeks, she said.

While there is no brain trauma, Elmore said it is not yet known if her brother-in-law will fully recover. But the family remains optimistic.

“I believe with the right recovery and rehab, he will be able to walk again,” she said.

While firefighters weren’t at the scene, her brother-in-law did get proper medical treatment on site from emergency medical responders, Elmore said.

“I feel bad for all parties involved,” including the driver of the vehicle, she said, but added that police shouldn’t have kept it secret.

“In my opinion, this was a serious accident and should’ve been publicized within a day or two,” Elmore said. “They publish a lot of situations that aren’t serious within a matter of minutes. I don’t know why they waited a week and a half.”