Danbury Mayor Says He's Proud of the Police Department Diversity

On Thursday (4/13/23), Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito did his weekly guest spot on the I-95 Morning Show. I mentioned to the Mayor that I've noticed an increased police presence downtown and we spoke about the city's plans for the Police Department. This is a portion of our discussion below.

Lou Milano: One of the things you campaigned on was beefing up the police presence in Danbury and having the most amount of officers on the staff, as possible. I have to shout you out because you've done that and you've added more officers recently. The police presence downtown has been amazing. I've noticed police cars going up and down, up and down Main Street. For some people that may not seem like a good thing but to me, I complained about criminal activity, speeding, double-parking but that is changing and it's very evident the Danbury Police Department is Downtown right now.

Mayor Esposito: "Yeah, they are doing a great job. You know, our Chief Pat Ridenhour and working together with our HR, we've been really blessed to get the quality people that we're getting right now. We're going to max out, our max at the Police Department is like 160, we're around 150 now. We're having some retirements come in but this week alone we just swore in, I think it was five and tomorrow (4/14/23), I think we have a swearing in for another three officers. The thing I'm most proud of, is that it's a diverse group., it represents the community that we live in. Danbury is one of the most diverse cities, if not the most diverse city in the State of Connecticut, and nationally. So, we have those young men and women and they're young, they're not old retirees from New York City. They are young and they're ready to work and we've been blessed to have them come on board."

Photo: Lou Milano

The Mayor added that the city is going to bring back elements of an old program, saying: "we're actually going to re-institute the bike patrol which is the new version of walking the beat. So, we're going to have officers right there on the bikes and some walking actually."

You can listen to our entire interview with the Mayor below. We also discussed last week's plane crash, hazardous waste disposal day and his friendship with Mark Boughton.

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