New Haven Assistant Chief Suspended

NEW HAVEN, CT — Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova was suspended for one day without pay following an internal investigation into a verbal action he had with a patrol officer.

Interim Chief Anthony Campbell ordered the suspension for conduct unbecoming of an officer, according to a department press release.

The incident involved Casanova calling a patrol officer a "[expletive] mope," for wearing a department-issued knit cap, according to the New Haven Independent. It happened at the Hill substation and Casanova later ordered the officer to come to headquarters to talk about what transpired.

There were two aspects to the conduct unbecoming of an officer violation, Campbell said to the Independent. One was the way he talked to the officer and the other was that he at first insisted that the officer speak to him without union representation, which he eventually relented.

Casanova retained Attorney Norm Pattis to represent him and explore legal options regarding the suspension.

Pattis wrote about the incident in a blog post and said that the "mope" term, "...is a person who just doesn’t get it, a perpetual ne’er do well with a rap sheet longer that a good kid’s Christmas list. And the “f-bomb” used to modify mope? The word is as common in the police station as it is in the courthouse."

He also called the actions take against Casanova character assassination.

Casanova became an assistant chief under previous Chief Dean Esserman, who resigned from the department earlier this year. He was previously in charge of the patrol bureau and is now in charge of professional standards and training.

Image via New Haven Police Department