Naugatuck Detective Aces State Criminal Investigation Course

Naugatuck Police Detective Ronald “Jay” Pugliese scored the highest among his class of 21 state and municipal investigators at the recent Fairfield County Detective Conference in Fairfield.

Pugliese, a Naugatuck native who has been a borough officer for 11 years and a detective since August, finished with an overall score of 93.27 - the class average was 88.6 - during the two-week course which concluded on Tuesday.

The conference covers all aspects of criminal investigation, including crime scene processing, evidence packaging and laboratory testing, identity theft and financial crimes investigations, gangs, interview and interrogation, burglary and stolen vehicle investigations. The course also covers search warrant and arrest warrant preparation, legal procedures and search and seizure and arrest applicable laws.

Pugliese said the course, which all Naugatuck detectives have taken at one point, was invaluable to his growth as a detective. The most intriguing course, he said, dealt with crime scene processing. The state police Major Crimes Squad used high-tech equipment to locate evidence in that session, he said.

“Obviously, it’s not as dramatic as (the TV crime series) CSI, but it's similar in that they use a lot of different chemicals and light sources to process the scene and find evidence that you would have never known was there,” he said.

The Fairfield County Detective Conference has been training Connecticut detectives for 50 years. Naugatuck detectives have a history of performing well at the conference.

In 2003, Sgt. Laura Harrison finished first in her class, and Lt. Steven Hunt finished second in the class of 2002.