Meriden Police Chief Responds to Traffic Stop Report

Note: read the full letter below or here.

Meriden Police Chief Jeffry Cossette wrote a letter to the citizens of Meriden regarding a recent statewide report on traffic stop data.

Cossette and the command staff met and analyzed the findings.

“...we found that our traffic stop data depicted a significantly different perspective than the perception created by the Traffic Stop Data Analysis,” he said.

Among some points, Cossette said that police deployment in town isn’t uniform and is more concentrated in inner city areas. On some days there can be up to 15 officers in inner city areas while there are 1-2 officer in suburban areas on the west side and 1-2 on the east side. Officers tend to focus on the inner city due to higher call volume, drug activity, street crime and car stops.

He also questioned the peer comparison group which includes Portland, Wallingford, North haven, Trumbull and Simsbury. He said a better comparison would include West Haven, New London, Torrington and New Britain.