Printer Friendly Version - Vince DeMaio: Clinton’s New Police Chief

With nearly three decades of policing experience—the last 3 ½ months as leader of Clinton’s Police Department—Vincent DeMaio is examining everything from the department’s uniforms to its social media presence in an effort to improve efficiency and communication. Photo by Lesia Winiarskyj/Harbor News

When Todd Lawrie retired last September after 28 years with the Clinton Police Department, the town’s Board of Police Commissioners launched an extensive search for a new chief. Earlier this year, they got their man.

Second in command of New Canaan’s police force, where he’d served for 27 years, former captain Vincent DeMaio officially signed on with the Clinton department on April 1, becoming the town’s eighth chief of police.

“I’m excited about raising the bar, increasing community outreach and involvement, improving efficiency, and delivering the highest quality of law enforcement services in this town,” he told Harbor News in March, when his contract was signed.

Leading the department’s 27 sworn officers for the last 3 ½ months, Vince says the move to Clinton from New Canaan, where he’d spent most of his career, was the right choice.

“This is New England,” he says, “not New York. It’s fantastic. This is what I used to dream about at 3 a.m. in my patrol car.”

“I grew up in two spots, really. Up until I was 10, I lived in the Berkshires. Then, when my parents divorced, my younger sister and I moved to Stamford, Connecticut, and lived with our dad and grandparents.”

“I’m really a country boy,” he says, “and I think of myself as someone from a different age. I was raised by World War II grandparents and felt a real affinity for that generation, which values service and sacrifice.”

When his family moved to Connecticut, Vince’s father enrolled him in Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic School.

“I was a rambunctious kid,” he admits, “and pretty independent-minded. I ran afoul of the nuns.”

In a running joke between him and the principal—a nun—he recalls, “Whenever I was sent down to her office in the afternoon, she’d say, ‘Mr. DeMaio, you’re late today.’ I stayed after school so often that even though I took the bus in the morning, I usually had to walk home in the afternoon.”

Like a lot of ’70s kids, he was a devoted fan of the Rod Serling-narrated documentary TV series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, starring the French marine explorer and filmmaker by the same name, with episodes like “The Sleeping Sharks of Yucatán,” “Secrets of the Sunken Caves,” and “The Night of the Squid.”

“I’ve always loved the water,” says Vince. “My hero was Jacques Cousteau.”

By the time he was in high school, though, he began thinking seriously about a job in law enforcement.

“I had a firefighter cousin who had once been a cop. He told me, ‘Be a firefighter. Everyone loves firefighters. Not everyone likes cops.”

“Back then, you’d have several hundred candidates for one open position,” he recalls. “It used to be months between test phases, and it could take up to two years to get a job.”

Waiting in a line that wrapped around an entire high school building, he took the written test and hoped for a job with Connecticut State Police Troop F in Westbrook.

“I loved this area,” he says. “My family used to pass through from Stamford on our way up to Mystic, and I wanted to work here.”

A friend, however, persuaded him to apply in New Canaan. After taking the test in June, he was quickly hired and entered the police academy in September.

“There were massive retirements in the New Canaan Police Department that year,” he recalls.

By the time he landed the job, he’d earned 15 college credits. Juggling a full-time job and his UConn coursework, he continued his education and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1997. Two years later, he enrolled in the graduate program at the University of New Haven, finishing his master’s in public administration in a year and a half, with a 3.9 GPA.

“The best case I ever worked was a multi-state home invasion case, basically involving three individuals out of Dutchess County, New York. They were very sophisticated burglars who researched wealthy, high-profile people.”

In a crime spree stretching from July 2011 to October 2012, brothers Paul and Daniel DiBiase (both in their late 50s) and a third accomplice stole $2.5 million in jewelry, silver, and other valuables from homes throughout Connecticut and New York State. Using physical surveillance and information found on the web, in newspapers, and in real estate listings, the crew targeted upscale homes and had a fence in Manhattan’s Diamond District who turned their stolen goods into cash. In all, they committed two dozen burglaries and 27 home invasions, including five robberies at gunpoint. The first of these happened in New Canaan.

“These were bad actors,” says Vince, “and I promised the woman in New Canaan that I would not stop until we found them. They were professionals. They were armed, and they would tie people up.”

In one case, Paul DiBiase reportedly bound a woman’s hand and feet, demanded her engagement ring, forced her to open a safe, struck her in the back, and threatened to “blow [her] head off.” In other cases, Vince says, victims reported that the robbers put pillows under their heads, tried to make them comfortable, and even offered to call for help afterward.

“It seemed strange at first,” he says, and it fueled some early suspicions of insurance fraud.

“We worked the case for about a year. We were the lead agency, and we partnered with a number of local, state, and federal agencies.”

These included the Greenwich, Wilton, and Ridgefield police and Connecticut State Police, along with the Westchester County Violent Crimes Task Force, Westchester County Police Department, New York State Police, FBI, and local New York police in Bedford, Harrison, and North Castle.

“It was a massive investigation with so many different agencies working together. There was a lot of camaraderie as we pieced together the puzzle using maps, video, and surveillance. The case was building and building until we were able to make the arrest and recover a lot of property that had been stolen. It was the high point of my career.”

On Feb. 27, 2015, Paul and Daniel DiBiase were sentenced to 27 and 15 years, respectively, for their crimes. Co-conspirator Jason Foskey, who cooperated with the FBI, was sentenced to six years.

One of Vince’s favorite memories, from a time when he was night-shift commander in New Canaan, was a medical call.

“It came in as a ‘miscellaneous’ call,” he says. When he arrived at the address, he found a couple in the bathroom. The woman announced, “I think I’m having a baby.”

“I was in my early 30s at the time,” says Vince. “I didn’t have kids of my own. But academy training prepares you for these situations.”

After grabbing some towels, Vince encouraged the woman’s husband to go wait for the ambulance.

“When I saw the baby crowning and looked down at tile floor and realized how slippery the baby was, I started getting nervous.”

“He put a hand on my shoulder. I figured that was it for me, but the paramedic said, ‘Go ahead, you’re doing a great job.’”

Vince delivered the newborn, cleared the airway, and clamped the umbilical cord.

“I announced, ‘It’s a girl!’ and we adopted her as our shift baby,” he says, with a smile. “Every Christmas, I get a letter from her mom telling me how Caroline is doing. She’s a teenager now.”

On his last day of work in New Canaan, at a farewell lunch in his honor, Caroline and her parents came out to say goodbye to their police captain and wish him well in his new job.

In the span of his career in New Canaan, Vince came up through the ranks, working as a patrolman, dispatcher, patrol sergeant, training officer, detective in the investigative division, patrol lieutenant, information liaison officer, investigations commander, and captain of operations—second in command of the department. His credentials also include serving on the executive board of the Police Association of Connecticut and as an assessor for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, evaluating other police departments’ ability to meet national best practices. A graduate of the FBI National Academy’s 260th session, Vince has been recognized with four Medical Service Awards and four Exceptional Police Duty Awards.

When he started in Clinton, one of the first things his officers asked was this: Is there something we can do about these uniforms?

“They were wool,” says Vince. “Sharp-looking, but impractical, heavy, and expensive. There’s only one supplier for this type of uniform, so ordering can take a long time.”

In fact, when he was sworn in earlier this year, it was impossible to get a new uniform delivered in time for the ceremony.

“Everything I wore to my swearing-in ceremony was borrowed,” he recalls, laughing. “The only things that were mine were my shoes and underwear.”

Vince says the new navy blue uniforms he chose, which were purchased with budgeted funds from officers’ uniform stipends, are more significantly more practical, comfortable, and functional—which makes it easier for his officers to do their jobs.

“Everyone thinks, ‘little Clinton,’” says Vince, “but they don’t realize how involved police work is even in a small town like ours. Clinton Crossing has over 10,000 visitors a day, and the town has upwards of 7,000 visitors in the summer.

“Tomorrow I’m meeting with members of the Secret Service and Homeland Security. Every crime committed today has some technology nexus attached to it. For example, cellphones are basically pocket computers, so we can take email, contacts, social media, and video evidence. We’re gearing up and getting training for a cybercrime investigation unit, which opens up the option for federally funded equipment rather than waiting for state lab results.”

“We’re meeting with the new general manager of Clinton Crossing to work out plan to train tenants on theft prevention measures. We’ll set up training courses on credit card fraud, retail theft awareness, counterfeit money, and other financial crimes. We’ll look at what the red flags are and go over standardized procedures for reporting these crimes.”

Summer, says Vince, is the heaviest drain on the shoreline town’s law enforcement resources.

“I look at Clinton as three separate service populations. The town has 13,000 residents and businesses, plus Clinton Crossing’s four million visitors a year, and an additional summer population of 7,000 to 8,000 people, all of which demand a certain response and certain police resources and capabilities. We have to become creative and understand the best way to use our limited, hardworking resources.

“A law enforcement career puts a lot of demands on you,” he adds. “It takes you away from your family, and it can be isolating. You might want to be home for your kid’s birthday party or the holiday, but you have to be at work. You also see society at its worst. People do ugly things to each other, and that builds. I’ve seen a lot of things in my career that I don’t want to remember. There’s a cumulative effect, and you need a good support system as a way to recharge your batteries.

“As an officer you also get to see people at their best, and you can have an immediate positive effect on someone. How do you quantify that, when someone saves another person’s life?”

Vince is looking to ramp up the Police Department’s social media engagement and hopes, by the end of July, to launch a My PD app.

“People could use it to provide us with crime tips, and we could push out a Twitter feed about everything from road closures and accidents, to Amber alerts, and information about suspects we’re pursuing. People are on their devices, and we want to be able to react in real time and have that community interface.

“Being the chief,” he adds, “I now have the capability to shape an entire organization. And the thing that’s been the greatest is the community support in Clinton. Everyone has been so welcoming to me and my family.”

Vince and his wife, Jennifer, relocated to Clinton this spring with their two children. Daughter Jillian (nicknamed “The Squish”) is a student at Pierson School, and son Timmy attends Eliot.

When he’s off-duty and the gang’s all together, says Vince, they enjoy flying kites, taking trips to Newport and Disney, and going for nature walks on the beach. The Squish is especially interested in sea creatures.