City Police seek recruits for new training class

By Theodore A. Driscoll, Courant Staff Writer

Hartford police are asking for help from about 40 community groups and from area colleges in a drive begun Monday to get recruits for a training class to begin in June.

Sgt. Deborah Brown will supervise four officers in the recruiting effort that will run until Feb. 6.

"We're public servants serving the community and we want the community as involved as possible," Brown said.

"One of the officers working with her will be assigned as liason with each of the community groups," Brown said.

"We're asking the groups to recommend good candidates and help us with the recruiting process," she said.

The business-oriented Downtown Council is participating as are neighborhood and ethnic groups.

If the drive is as successful as earlier ones, more than 1,000 people will submit applications, said James Fennell, acting assistant chief, who will head the recruitment drive.

A cith council resolution in December directed City Manager Alfred A. Gatta to restore department strength to 500 officers, its level before budget tightening reduced it to 482 officers in the current city budget.

Twenty of more people would be needed for the class to bring the depatement to 482 officers. If the city coundil resolution is applied to this class, it could increase the class size by an additional 18 recruits.

Police Chief Bernard R. Sullivan said he expects about half the new recruits will be blacks, Hispanics, or women, all of whom are under-represented in the department.

Fennell headed a recruitment drive in 1983 that produced a class of 55 recruits made up of about one-third each blacks, Hispanics and women.

In December, 1982, the department had 344 white mails, 61 black males, 21 Hispanic males and 14 females, including those who were white, black or Hispanic, according to figures Fennell cited from department records.

Today, the department has 342 white males, 62 black males, 42 Hispanic males and 27 females, 13 of whom are white, 8 black and 6 Hispanic. A breakdown of women officers in 1982 was not immediately available.

The four officers assigned to work with Brown on recruiting are Lawrence Price, Mark Rudewicz, Robert Alfaro and Lynda Williams. Price, who has been with the department five years, is in the crime suppression unit. He is an ordained minister who has his own gospel program Wednesdays on Channel 26, a local cable station.

Rudewicz, with four years on the department, is in the patrol division. Last week, he was rescued by fire-fighters and treated for smoke inhalation after he made repeated attempts to reach a 3-year-old trapped in a fire in an apartment on Broad Street.

Alfaro, an eight-year veteran, is on the police mounted patrol unit assigned to Colt Park. Alfaro's wife, Anna Alfaro, is one of the hosts on Alelante, a program on Hispanic community affairs.

Williams, with five years on the department is with the crime suppression unit. She was awarded the department's distinguished service medal in 1984 after she and another officer were held at gunpoint along with three civilian hostages during the robbery of a jewelry store.