Blazejowski retirement renews dispute over handling of troubled police officer

For city Councilor Kevin Fuller, his vote last week to offer a disability retirement to troubled police Officer Marc Blazejowski was one of the most disturbing choices he’s had to make.

Fuller said the disability section’s wording fit Blazejowski’s situation and both the city and an independent physician argued that he should be granted disability, which pays officers 70 percent of their regular as well as benefits.

Fuller said he had little choice given that firing the 34-year-old officer would have meant the city would “end up in the same place” after spending time and money in a court case it could not win.

The problem, Fuller said, is that Blazejowski should have been axed years ago. The ball was dropped back then, he said, not now.

There’s something to that argument.

According to a 2011 report byconsultant Lori Coppinger, Blazejowski should have been fired after a series of incidents culminating in a 2006 meltdown when the officer expressed the idea that he would “like to kill someone” to see how it feels. Link to the full story.
Tuesday's paper will have an updated version of this story.

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

The Coppinger coverup

First off, I have no idea whether the 1,200-page report by Lori Coppinger, a retired West Hartford police  official, is on the money or not.
I haven't seen it.
What I do know is that City Hall is making sure that almost nobody ever sees it.
After the furor surrounding Police Officer Robert Mosback's crash and resignation in the wake of the Press' revelation that he'd been drunk at the time of the on-duty accident, it's simply unimaginable that the report that's supposed to answer all questions is almost totally unavailable.
I could go to the city attorney's office and read it. So could you. So could anyone.
But, c'mon. This isn't 1856.
That report should be posted online so that skeptical residents who want to read it can do so from their own home, office or on the beach in Miami.
Failing to put it online is just jabbing a finger into the skeptical eyes of a jaded public.
I know Mayor Art Ward is out of commission and decisions at City Hall are being made haphazardly, but keeping this report a virtual secret is just plain stupid.
Get it up on the city's website if you want anyone to believe what it says -- or even if you'd just as soon they dismissed its conclusions.
Let people pick it apart however they like.
Every page -- all 1,200 of them - should be online ASAP. Keeping the report on the shelf at City Hall in the internet age amounts to a cover up. That's the crowdsourcing age we live in now.

By the way, here are links to stories about the report from The Bristol Press and The Hartford Courant.
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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com