Darien Police Station

Another Senior Police Official Leaves: Detectives Commander Lt. Ronald Bussell to Retire

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Darien Police Lt. Ronald Bussell, commander of the detective division, and his wife, Nancy, a clerk in the records division, will both retire from the department in the next few months. “This is a little bittersweet here,” Police Chief Duane Lovello said. On the one hand, he wishes the couple a great retirement, he said; on the other, the department will lose a lot of acquired experience Lt. Bussell acquired over the years. “You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody that works harder than Ronald Bussell,” Lovello said. “He really has been an absolute tremendous asset to this department, but he’s put in a lot of years.

Police

First Selectman Gets Complaints About Phony Reports to Police Digital Tip Line

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Darien Police Captain Donald Anderson said the department is pretty pleased with its new digital tip line that not only allows people to send in an anonymous tip, but allows them to keep their anonymity if police send them a message asking for more information. But First Selectman Jayme Stevenson is getting complaints about abuse of the tip line by people acting anonymously and perhaps vengefully against others, and she said she wanted to discuss with police their tone when they question kids after a tip about them comes in. Stevenson and Anderson spoke at last week’s quarterly department heads meeting with the Board of Selectmen. Anderson was filling in for Police Chief Duane Lovello, who was in New York at a training event. Police Pleased with Tip Line
As part of the Police Department’s report, Anderson mentioned how pleased police are with the new tip line.

Darien police logo

After Gun-Firing Incident, Two Police Officers Get Retroactive 60-Day Suspensions Without Pay

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After two Darien police officers were arrested in an incident last summer in which a gun was fired in a residential neighborhood while the officers were off duty, the Police Commission on Monday imposed 60-day suspensions without pay for each officer. The officers, James Martin (then 41 years old) and Daniel Ehret (then 38), will return to work. They were both suspended with pay since the incident and arrested by town police in October. Each was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree breach of peace and illegal discharge of a firearm. Their cases are still pending in state Superior Court in Stamford, where they are next scheduled to appear on March 31.

Darien Police Capt. Gary Pavia, Officer John Murphy Retire

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Darien police Capt. Gary Pavia, commander of the “field services bureau” which includes the patrol division and detective division, has retired from the department with the reluctant approval of the Police Commission. The commission on Wednesday also accepted the retirement of Officer John Murphy, effective Feb. 26, and later went into executive session to discuss unspecified personnel matters. “Gary, we are going to miss you a great, great deal — absolutely,” commission Chairman Paul Johnson told him at the board’s meeting. “I mean, you’ve just been so helpful to the commission, to everybody in the department, and, obviously, we wish you all the best.”

Gregory Benedetto

Letter: Darien Woman Thanks Police Officer for Saving Her Husband’s Life

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Darien Police Officer Gregory Benedetto was recently thanked by a Darien woman for saving the life of her husband, who experienced a heart attack during a family dispute in 2013. “Somehow, ‘Thank you’ just isn’t enough to say to the person who has changed the lives of our family,” the woman wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to Benedetto which was shared at a recent meeting of the Darien Police Commission. “When you saved my husband’s life, you also saved the lives of our entire family.” (We’ve reprinted the letter below.)

Benedetto later received an award from the Police Department in connection with the incident — not his first award in connection with saving a life (a month before, he had received department awards for saving lives).

smartphone

You Can Now Text Anonymous Tips to Darien Police

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Darien police recently announced an online service allowing the public to send in anonymous tips through a website. Now police have announced that anonymous tips can be texted. Here’s the latest police announcement:

The Darien Police Department has partnered with Motorola Solutions to provide a fully anonymous crime tipping service that allows Darien residents to send tips to the Darien Police and for tipsters and tip recipients to anonymously communicate back and forth if further information is needed. The new service, called TipSoft, allows residents to report crimes they see in a variety of manners. Tips can be submitted online at www.tipsubmit.com, via text by sending a text message to “CRIMES” (274637) with the keyword darientips from a mobile phone, or through the TipSubmit mobile app.

Darien Man Reports Missing 12-Gauge Shotgun, Samurai Sword

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Darien Police are investigating the reported theft of a 12-gauge shotgun and 3-foot Samurai sword from a freestanding garage on Hollow Tree Ridge Road. A 52-year-old town man told police that the weapons went missing from his sister’s garage at 137 Hollow Tree Ridge Road some time between Friday and 10:40 a.m. Monday, according to a police report. The man said he’s in the process of moving and had both the sword—kept in a bamboo sheath—and the black pump-action shotgun with a wooden handle, at his sister’s with some other belongings, the report said. The gun is worth about $100 and the man told police he’s owned for 20 years, while the sword is more than 100 years old and worth about $2,500, the report said. The man was unable to produce the gun’s serial number and he doesn’t know how old it is, police said.

Typing Parvi

You Can Now Submit Anonymous Tips to Darien Police Online

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An anonymous service that allows you to send in a tip to Darien police has started, the Police Department has announced. The tips are collected by a website, TipSubmit.com. run by a company called Public Engines Inc., which sends the information to police. The company’s “Confidential Web Tip Information System” appears to be part of its “TipSoft” services, which also include an application for smartphones and the ability to text a tip. In the department’s announcement, only the ability to use the online service, not the phone app or texting, was mentioned, but on Tuesday, Police Chief Duane Lovello told the Board of Selectmen that the department has ordered the texting service as well.

Darien Police Station

Body Cameras for Darien Police May Be in Next Year’s Town Budget

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Police Chief Duane Lovello says the department again is looking into buying body cameras for all police officers, a proposal that was almost made in last year’s budget deliberations. “We are exploring potential implementation of body cameras, as is every other department in the state that doesn’t have them,” Lovello told a recent meeting of the Darien Police Commission. The cost of getting body cameras is not so much in the devices themselves — they cost roughly $300 or $400 apiece — but in storing and retrieving the video records, which could run up to $75,000 or $80,000 a year, he said. The state attorney general wants any body-camera videos stored up to four years, because civil lawsuits can have a filing deadline, in some circumstances, that long after an incident (for the most part, he said, the deadline is three years). “We did have it [a body-camera program proposal] all fired up for last year’s budget [deliberations] and pulled it out at the last minute,” Lovello said.

Where's Waldo?

Darien Police Dept’s New Website Has Incidents Map, Other New Features

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Darien Police Department just launched its new website with new features giving the public more information about police activities in town. The new version of the website also has more links from the home page to information provided on the previous version of the website, making it easier to get to. Crime Reports

One new feature, “Crime Reports,” initially shows a map of recent incidents involving police, including traffic stops and motor vehicle accidents. If you click on a small icon at a particular location, you can get very brief information on the incident. The nature of an incident can be shown by the icon itself — sometimes an image of a car (for motor vehicle accidents), or letters (“PP” for police stops of motor vehicles; “Q” for some other incidents).

Police

Several New Devices for Darien Police, and Police Have One for You

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The Darien Police Department is asking the town government to accept money for equipment on a police boat, is getting training equipment for simulated confrontations with criminals, and is asking for a system that allows anonymous texted tips. They’ve got something for you, too: A new town police website, paid for with money from false burglar alarm fines, which (as of Tuesday) police were expecting to go online Friday, Dec. 18. Each of these items, which all involve relatively new technology, were discussed at a recent Police Commission meeting. Equipment for police boat

The Darien Foundation for Technology and Community has offered to give up to $65,000 to the town to buy equipment that will help outfit a new Police Department boat to be used by the marine unit.

Animal Control

Police: Get Your Dog License or Get a Ticket

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Tickets will be issued starting Dec. 1, 2015 to any dog owners found delinquent of renewing or obtaining a  dog license.  

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— an announcement from Darien Police Animal Control Officer Chip Stahl

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Dog licensing is due in the month of June.  Dog licenses can ONLY  be obtained or renewed through the Darien Town Clerk’s Office.  Renewals can be completed through the mail in the month of June [but you can still get them later]. A current rabies certificate is needed to obtain the license as well. Any questions should be directed to the Town of Darien Municipal Animal Control Officer (MACO) at 203-662-5345.

Town Seal Patrol Car

Darien Police Offer Businesses Tips on Avoiding Wire Fraud

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Darien police have just offered tips on how to avoid having your business become a victim of wire fraud. Recently, two Darien businesses — a travel agency and a real estate business — were scammed by hackers who got into a top executive’s email account and issued directives to have money wired. The travel agency lost $10,000. The real estate business lost $48,600. Here’s the complete tip sheet, as posted on Facebook by Darien police:
Town of Darien Business Alert System
Issued by: Det.

Anthony Sabato

Drug Conviction Gets Person of Interest in Bateman Cop Killing a 13-Year Sentence

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Anthony Sabato, named a “person of interest” in the 1981 killing of Darien Police Officer Kenneth Bateman, was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years and nine months in prison on unrelated drug-selling charges. The sentencing judge in U.S. District Court in Hartford also found that Sabato, 57, had “supplied the firearm that was used in the murder of Darien Police Officer Kenneth Bateman in May 31, 1981,” according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Connecticut. Sabato, a West Haven resident, was arrested on March 24 on an accusation he sold  two ounces of crack cocaine to an undercover police officer for $4,000. He’s been in jail since then, and pleaded guilty on July 6 to one count of “conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine base,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In a long criminal career, Sabato has been convicted of 35 crimes since 1975.

William Bowman

Darien Police Commemorate Officer William Bowman, Killed on Duty

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Darien police officers are wearing mourning bands today to honor one of their own, Officer William Bowman, killed on this date in 1927 in a motorcycle accident while on duty. William E. Bowman was 30 years old. In a Facebook post, the department announced:

Officer Bowman joined the Darien Police Department on Feb. 1, 1926. Bowman enjoyed an exemplary record of service to the Department and furthered his service to the community by also serving as a volunteer firefighter.