13 May—The bad news is, Litchfield will be losing its police force. Corporal Pete Russo and Constable Greg Kenny have announced their imminent retirement. They won’t be keeping the peace for this year’s Memorial Day parade. We’ll truly miss them.

No, they’re not a couple.

For readers not acquainted with Litchfield, the town’s police force has consisted of one, then two full-time so-called sworn constables—full-fledged, certified law-enforcement officers—and a resident state trooper. Part-time constables, sworn or otherwise, and/or state troopers (sometimes on private duty) may help out when their services are required.

We’ll still have Trooper First Class Jim Holm, our resident trooper, ably watching over Litchfield, of course. And he’s actually a town resident and taxpayer, which too many resident troopers aren’t. That’s the good news.

Getting back to bad news, the selectmen are seriously considering replacing the retiring town constables with another resident trooper. Denise Raap, Litchfield’s normally prudent first selectwoman, assures me that deal won’t cost as much as hiring two new constables. Without doing the arithmetic, I’ll take her word for it for now.

(Denise also assures me she prefers to be called the first selectman. Be that as it may, I can no longer honor her preference because she’s clearly not a selectman and I also refuse to call actresses actors.)

Notwithstanding the possible budgetary advantage of two resident troopers over two constables and a resident trooper, Litchfield doesn’t need them. Truth be told, Litchfield doesn’t even need one full-time resident trooper.

Among other things, the Connecticut State Police Troop L barracks is right here in Litchfield. But not so fast. The State Police overlord, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) and its predecessor, have insisted, when I’ve brought the subject up in the past (as I’ve been doing for 35 years), that just because the barracks is in town, we shouldn’t count on its troopers responding to calls and even emergencies.

I couldn’t believe it either.

One commissioner even boasted that he had instructed (but not ordered) barracks commanders to make it clear to little towns in their service areas that unless they had resident troopers, they’d get minimal cooperation from the State Police. He admitted that his intent was to drum up business and revenue for his department. And he didn’t care that his strategy wasn’t quite legal while putting the State Police in a bad light.

More recently, lots of other things have put the Connecticut State Police (and prosecutors and judges) in a bad light. In all events, we don’t need two resident troopers in Litchfield. It’s nice to have Jim Holm here now, but when he retires he shouldn’t be replaced . . .