This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
02/24/2016 07:30 AMAs a patrol officer, detective, detective sergeant and, most recently, patrol sergeant, Guilford police work has been a way of life for Sgt. Steven Renchy.
The Guilford native got his start with Guilford Police Department (GPD) as an 18 year-old part-time auxiliary officer right out of high school (Guilford High School Class of ‘77), and then was hired as a full-time patrol officer at 21.
On Saturday, Feb. 27, Steven will officially retire from the GPD, completing a stellar, 35-year career with his hometown force.
“It’s just been an incredible journey. Thirty-five years have gone by just like that. It doesn’t seem possible that I’m leaving after all this time,” says Steven. “This is what I’ve done my entire adult life, right here in this department. I’ve served under five chiefs, starting out at 50 Boston Street and then moving to 400 Church Street.”
In raw numbers, Steven’s gathered some very impressive departmental recognition through the years, including a Life Saving Award, five commendations, and five unit citations.
Saving a woman’s life several years ago was definitely a high point in his career, and Steven attributes the save to “gut instinct.
“Every police officer, over time, develops a gut instinct. It comes with training and experience,” he says. “The woman was suicidal, but we didn’t know it at first. We had gone to interview her and she talked us out of the fact that she wanted to harm herself, and we believed she was okay , so we left.”
Within an hour, Steven insisted on returning.
“I had that gut instinct that something wasn’t right, and I decided to go back to the house—and we couldn’t find her. She had left a note on the table, and while we were searching around the house, we heard splashing in the water in the lake next door. She had gone in and she was trying to drown herself.”
At the other end of the extreme, Steven says his worst day of policing arrived in 2000. Two days after Christmas, two young children and their mother were found dead in their home. They had been stabbed repeatedly. The murderer, a relative, was caught and convicted.
“The worst thing that ever happened here during my career was the triple homicide. It was the most horrific thing I’ve had to witness and handle,” says Steven.
But there have been many positive moments, and even ground-breaking changes, with Steven’s help. In particular, Steven has helped GPD to better protect and empower domestic violence victims for much of his career. He’s officially leaving his role as GPD’s domestic violence liaison officer, but that’s just one of many hats he’s worn on the way to assisting with the development of this important aspect of police work in Guilford, and beyond.
“It’s come a long, long way,” says Steven of today’s proactive policing and domestic violence protocols. “When I started out, in cases of domestic violence, even if there was clear evidence that a crime had been committed, unless the victim wanted to press charges, we walked away.”
In the early 1990s, Steven got involved with a new effort, the Guilford Child Development Community Policing (CDCP) program, modeled after a cooperative program underway with New Haven Police and Yale Child Study Center.
“When I was a detective sergeant, I got involved and trained in that aspect,” says Steven, who went on to serve as Guilford CDCP coordinator until his retirement. “The real issues that came out of CDCP were children witnessing domestic violence in the home.”
Steven also served with the New Haven County Domestic Task Force and then became a part of the localized spinoff organization, the Shoreline Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Task Force. Steven also became GPD’s coordinator of the Domestic Violence Home Intervention Program (with Guilford Youth & Family Services) and coordinator of the Lethality Assessment Program.
“We first added the Domestic Violence Home Intervention Program, where we contact victims of domestic violence, usually the day after [an incident] and explain to them how the system works, how to get protective orders, how to find resources,” says Steven. “And then from that, we were one of the first in the state to adopt the Lethality Assessment Program.”
The assessment program trains officers to initiate a safety program for victims who may still be in harm’s way, helping domestic violence victims avoid potential serious injury, or even being killed.
“When our police officers go to the scene of domestic violence, they have criteria to check, and if the victim screens in according to the protocol, the officer gets right on the phone with a victim advocate and puts them in contact right at the scene. It’s a great program,” says Steven.
Steven’s also made a difference in the lives of local youth in need of guidance, as coordinator of the Guilford Juvenile Review Board (JRB) since 2002. The program keeps juveniles who’ve committed minor offenses from heading to juvenile court by instead having them undergo board review. The JRB employs counseling, community service, and generally a higher level of attention than what’s afforded through New Haven’s overburdened juvenile justice system. He says the success of the program is seen through its low rate of recidivism.
For his contributions above and beyond his everyday duties, in 2010, Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven presented Steven with an award for Outstanding Dedication and Tireless Service to Victims of Domestic Violence. In 2012, the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence named Steven a First 100 award recipient. The honor was given to male leaders from business, government, and the community committed to making a difference in the lives of domestic violence victims. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal gave Steven a Certificate of Special Recognition in 2013. In 2014, Steven was one of two Guilford Police Department recipients of the annual Shoreline Heroes Award, given by Branford Exchange Club.
For all he may have contributed to help GPD, Steven says he’s grateful for many opportunities his career here has afforded him.
“When I was in the detective division back in the ‘90s, I got involved with finger printing...and I actually went to three different FBI schools and became a certified latent print examiner,” says Steven.
With that experience, Steven joined the Connecticut Chapter of the International Association of Identification, a professional organization dedicated to forensic science. As a more than 25 year member, Steven has served as the group’s president and vice-president and through the group met and worked with Dr. Henry Lee, who encouraged Steven’s daughter, Danielle, a University of New Haven (UNH) graduate, to apply to join Dr. Lee’s new forensics technology master’s degree program at UNH. She was accepted and is also currently interning with Dr. Lee’s office.
“She initially wanted to be a police officer,” says Steven of his only child with his wife of 23 years, Carol. “She decided her sophomore year in high school that she wanted to get into [forensics] and set her goal on UNH. That was five years ago.”
Asked if he would’ve been concerned about his daughter entering police work, Steven says policing is a “dangerous job.
“I don’t think I really thought about it, when I started out, but it’s a very dangerous job. Unfortunately, we’re in a small town, and people tend to say, ‘Nothing ever happens in Guilford.’ That isn’t true. We’ve had many officers injured in the line of duty, fighting with people unexpectedly who decide they don’t want to be arrested or don’t want to be committed to the hospital.”
Attitudes toward policing have changed in 35 years, Steven says.
“Being a police officer in America right now is not a good thing, unfortunately, because of all the controversy that’s going on around the country,” he says.
That said, Guilford officers enjoy an excellent relationship with the community and work hard to maintain that relationship, Steven says.
“It’s a great department with wonderful people who respect the job and respect the people that they’re serving,” he notes.
While Feb. 27 is officially his last day, Steven wrapped up his last work day on Feb. 4 and was surprised and honored to be the focus of a farewell breakfast and lunch at GPD, where visitors included members of the Police Commission and Guilford First Selectman Joseph Mazza.
“That was a tearful day, but it was a nice day,” Steven says. “But it’s the right time for me. I believe in going out at the top of your game, and I believe I’m at the top of my game, and it’s time to go.”
With plenty of expertise on his side, Steven says he would consider entering into a new career where he can employ his investigative experience and/or his domestic violence programming backgrounds. In the meantime, he’ll also continue to enjoy being a Guilford resident.
“I’ve made a lot of contacts in the community through the years and I’m going to miss checking in with them through my police work, but I’m also a member of this community,” he says. “You’ll still see me, out and about.”