Things you should (or might wanna) know

NORWALK, Conn. – We’re going to start off today with something a bit more serious – and perhaps divisive – that has local and semi-local ties – a “should” as opposed to a “wanna.”

Certainly by now most people are aware of the Texas case of a woman who was stopped for a minor traffic violation – not signaling a lane change with little or no apparent traffic around her and a fast-approaching police car coming up behind – and wound up being screamed at, forced out of her car, arrested and – three days later – found hanging in her cell.

She was on her way to a job interview at the time.

It was just another in a long string of highly publicized incidents casting police in a negative light.

Most reasonable people, of course, would say that you can no more make blanket statements about the police based on the actions of individuals than you can about, say, minority groups based on the actions of individuals. But there seem to be a lot of unreasonable people on both sides of that simile.

In Norwalk, Police Chief Thomas Kulhawik, Mayor Harry Rilling and minority community leaders held a meeting, criticized by some folks, to open communication to try to prevent that type of situation from happening here.

And now the New Haven Register reports Mayor Toni Harp has asked her Community and Police Relations Task Force (see, they aren’t unique to Norwalk) to meet with residents and take the temperature of the community regarding its perceptions of the New Haven Police.

If nothing else – and it is unfortunate it had to happen this way – the incidents from Ferguson to Baltimore to Texas have encouraged a dialog between communities and those who govern about how to improve relations with police. Hopefully, both sides will figure out they need to make changes.

Whodunnit? City plunging into toilet mystery

We normally wouldn’t write about clogged toilets in public places, but this one’s different – it was clogged with cement as part of a vandalism spree that may be related to a dispute between New Haven and a now-suspended city employee.

It’s a cautionary tale involving the city employee, a city-owned building, a non-profit agency and possible misuse of public money.

According to the New Haven Independent, the city official, the executive director of the Commission on Equal Opportunities, is claiming innocence in the damage spree and is even pointing the finger at city officials, saying they engineered the whole thing to make her look bad. Nichole Jefferson said, “The city has been truly terrible to me and discriminated against me. This administration — it’s a sad day that they would hurt an organization that helps residents.”

And today’s creepiest story…

Sometimes you just don’t know what you might find when you look under the bed.

In Spotswood, N.J., according to a story posted by NBCNews.com, a wannabe burglar got into a house while the owner was taking out the trash. Surprised to hear the owner come back, apparently, the intruder slithered under a bed.

He stayed there for three days.

Not only was he charged in connection with the break-in, but he got nailed for theft of services – he charged four cellphones using an outlet under the bed.