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11/01/2017 08:30 AMAs a police officer, Theodore “Ted” Stockmon is now halfway through his 32nd year serving the town. He’s still out on patrol, but he’s also involved in town and has fun with some of his unique collections.
North Haven is Ted’s hometown—both his parents grew up in town, too—and as a patrol officer, he says he’s in a position to care about it like it’s his own.
Ted has been on patrol for his entire 32-year career, and he’s now the oldest patrolman in the police department. He says he’s no longer working because he has to, but that he’s working because he feels like it.
“I’m not even remotely sick of it,” Ted says.
He says he’s worked with three generations of police officers, starting with ones who were old enough to be his father when he started; now he’s working with people young enough to be his kids. He’s on his third police patch, his fourth chief, and his fourth sidearm.
While a lot has changed in that timeframe, one thing that hasn’t is his hometown pride.
“In spite of the development over my career, in spite of the increased traffic volume, I don’t believe we have a bad neighborhood in town,” Ted says.
Fortunately he’s never been seriously hurt on the job in his 32 years on patrol. His only struggle is the new technology.
“Thank God for the young guys,” Ted says, “There’s guys with one or two years in the job that have to bail me out on a weekly basis.”
When he drives through town, he keeps his window open (even a couple of inches in the winter) just in case someone tries to get his attention when he goes by.
“When you’re the local guy, it’s never Officer Stockmon; it’s Teddy,” Ted says.
He says North Haven is a town that supports its local law enforcement, and it’s nice to work in a town where police are supported. He says there are six officers who previously served on the New Haven force, and “it blows their minds that people wave to us.”
Noting that he sees his co-workers more than his own family, he says it has been tough for him to see many of his peers retire. Although he didn’t anticipate it, he says he’s bonded with the younger men on the force as well.
A fan of history and cameras, Ted is involved with the North Haven Historical Society, and says he easily has more than 20,000 pictures scanned in on his home computer. He suspects he has the biggest collection (at least scanned into a computer file) of vintage North Haven pictures going back to about 1940.
He got a lot of the pictures when the Police Department was clearing out its files a few years back and throwing out photos that weren’t important to retain. Much of it was photos of crashes, intersections, and things in town. He says it’s neat because some of the intersections don’t even resemble what they do now.
“I’m a collector of a number of things that the average person doesn’t collect,” Ted says.
Vintage police cars fall under that category, and Ted has a few of them. He’s a member of the Eastern Vintage Police Car Association, a group of vintage police car enthusiasts in the Northeast that Ted says goes all over to police memorial events in the Northeast area, including the Police Memorial Week in Washington D.C.
Ted says the group goes down in a convoy and is invited to be in a parade during the week.
“Half the fun is the ride to and from,” Ted says, “How many people get to drive 30-, 40-year-old-police cars 500 miles in a day? I get to be a kid again.”
Ted says it’s a great group of people and good causes they attend, whether the events are fundraisers, car shows, parades, or police memorial events.
Speaking of cars and fundraisers, he’s the only original committee member left who oversees the Labor Day Car Show that’s sponsored by the North Haven Police Benevolent Association (PBA). This past September was the 10th year of the car show, which is a fundraiser for the PBA.
“It’s amazing the time you have when your kids are grown up,” Ted says with a laugh, “I didn’t have this time six years ago.”
Ted has three children: a daughter, Tara, and two sons, Ian and Evan. His daughter is a school teacher in Hartford, Ian is on his eight year in the Coast Guard, and Evan is doing software development for a health care company in Boston.