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06/01/2022 08:30 AMMany people who chose police work as their career will tell you that someone or something inspired them to pursue the law enforcement field. East Haven native Renee Forte Dominguez had no such influencer. Instead, her love of police work was innate and started in childhood.
“I always wanted to be a police officer, since I was a little girl,” recalls Renee. “That’s the only memory I have. I don’t have any police officers in my family. But I was probably like six years old when I started telling my mom and dad that I was going to be a police officer.”
Although Renee knew, with certainty, what she wanted to be when she grew up, she lived a regular childhood filled with activities that didn’t entail anything like junior police work or even scouting.
After she graduated from East Haven High School in 1997, she entered the University of New Haven where she earned a bachelor of science in criminal justice in May 2001, followed by a bachelor of arts in Spanish from Southern Connecticut State University in 2008.
Prior to both college degrees, however, Renee was already working as a certified police officer in the Newtown Police Department, where she served for two years, from late 2000 through late 2002.
“As soon as I turned 21, I started applying to police departments,” Renee recalls. “Newtown was the first I applied to and was hired.”
After two years in Newtown, Renee says, “I then transferred to the New Haven Police Department because I wanted a larger city department and I wanted to be closer to home. My parents still live in the same house in East Haven that we grew up in.”
After working her way up through the various officer ranks, Renee recently retired from her position as the interim Chief of Police for the New Haven Police Department (NHPD), a role she served for one year and two months.
Renee would have continued with the NHPD had she been chosen to continue as chief, but another person was selected by the New Haven Board of Alderman. She takes the rejection in stride.
“It’s okay,” she says.
When Renee left Newtown, she went from a police department of about 40 officers to one with 500 officers in New Haven.
“I had a great time in Newtown,” Renee recalls, but she was just 21 and 22 years old at the time.
“I wanted to come back closer to my family [in East Haven] and I wanted a big city department,” she says, adding, “If I was going to leave Newtown, which was a great department and a great community, I was going to leave for something drastically different.”
While Renee says she’s thankful for the foundation that the Newtown Police Department gave her, “I’ve had a blessed career in New Haven for the past 20 years and I’ve really been able to do everything I wanted to do and I’ve had many opportunities,” states Renee.
At just 42, Renee still has a great deal to offer, and her love of law enforcement and talent as a leader is evidenced by her quick rise to the top at the NHPD. She hopes that a new opportunity will open to step into a police chief role in another Connecticut town, where she can bring all that she’s learned and accomplished to a new community and its citizens.
“I have nothing but positive things to say about my career in New Haven,” Renee continues. “I got to do so many things. I was on patrol. I was on a walking beat for many years and that’s where I learned about community policing. Community policing is a philosophy, but to actually do it, that’s where you learn to talk to people and build relationships. I still keep in contact with people I first meet in a walking beat as a really young officer.”
As Renee worked her way up through the NHPD ranks, she served stints as a K9 officer, a sergeant, and became a manager of three different districts of the NHPD’s 10 districts, and then as a lieutenant before being promoted to assistant chief of patrol—a role she served in for almost two years—before stepping into the interim chief position in March 2021.
Although currently retired, Renee has two young daughters, ages 4 and 7, to keep her busy at home, and she teaches criminal justice in the undergraduate program as an adjunct professor at the University of New Haven.
“Last semester was my first semester and I’ll teach again in the fall,” says Renee.
“This past week [since retirement] has been rather different to have all of this time,” notes Renee, and laughs.
Despite her recent retirement, Renee says, “I don’t feel that I’m done,” when talking about future police work. “I feel I really just hit my stride in New Haven. Being the chief in New Haven really allowed me to grow in so many ways beyond where I thought I would.
“It’s amazing, with each new challenge, what you discover about yourself,” Renee continues. “I wish things were different in New Haven,” she says about the aldermen not voting to make her the permanent chief. “But things don’t always happen the way we want, and you have to be able to see something else. Eventually, I’ll look back and say, ‘That’s why this happened this way.’ When you’re in it you can’t see it yet, but I don’t think policing is done yet for me, and I’m hoping there will be some opportunities for me to continue at the chief level for another community.”
“I feel I can use so many of the tools I learned in New Haven,” notes Renee, “to enhance another department and bring a female’s point of view. There are only three female chiefs in the state now, with my retirement.”
When Renee looks back on the last 22 years in law enforcement, she is thankful for all the opportunities she had and the encouragement and mentoring she received from those who believed in her.
“Policing is a noble profession,” she concludes. “I’m thankful for my mentors who pushed me to work outside of my comfort zone and grow. I didn’t get to the level of chief alone. We all need those kinds of mentors.”