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04/17/2019 08:00 AMDuring big events or complicated cases, it helps to be able to rely on the support of your neighbors. On April 15, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) formally approved two mutual aid agreements between the Guilford Police Department and other police departments in the region.
The first is the South Central Connecticut Traffic Unit Police Assistance Compact. That agreement includes the towns of East Haven, North Haven, North Branford, Branford, Madison, and now Guilford. Deputy Police Chief Butch Hyatt said the compact will help boost police resources for traffic cases.
“So you hear the governor talking about regional initiatives and things like that,” Hyatt said. “Being a part of a regional initiative is a force multiplier for the police department and for the town as well, because we can bring in people with certain specialties, particularly in the area of accident investigations for serious injury or fatal accidents,” he said.
Hyatt said Guilford police already work with these neighboring departments through other arrangements like the regional SWAT team. Under these agreements, the departments share resources, equipment, and staff.
Hyatt said with traffic accidents, particularly serious injury or fatal accidents, there are numerous specific investigative certifications that vary based on the type of accident—pedestrian, motorcycle, and off-road, etc. He said it’s rare to have one officer certified in all areas, so having a broader knowledge or skill base to pull from for these investigations is important.
“In the case of accidents like that, many times they are very involved scenes and the charges that go along with that tend to be very serious felony charges if a person is found guilty, so we need to be able to investigate those things appropriately,” he said.
The BOS unanimously approved the traffic compact. The second agreement is the South Central Connecticut General Services Mutual Police Assistance Compact, which includes the same collection of shoreline police departments. Hyatt said this compact allows officers to work in other towns outside of emergency situations.
“There is a state statute that covers towns going to help each other in an emergency because a town can get overwhelmed very quickly in a catastrophic event,” he said. “This would be for a non-emergency situation…This is a force multiplier and it limits our liability because we now have statutory authority to go into other towns and work where before we didn’t have that without the agreement.”
Hyatt said the police department would take advantage of this compact for things like the American Idol concert on the green years ago or maybe the Guilford Fair—events that are planned but still require a lot of police officers.
“It’s a non-emergency but it’s a situation where you can easily be overwhelmed and you still have to maintain public safety in all areas of the town,” he said.
The BOS approved both compacts unanimously.