Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam says a national search and meetings with community members led him to the conclusion that the best person for the job of police chief could be found at home.
Saying that interim, and former, chief James Rovella fits his priorities and those expressed by the community, Arulampalam has named Rovella to the permanent job.
“If I had thought that Chief Rovella was an option to begin with,” said Arulampalam at a City Hall press conference Thursday, “I think we would have gotten there a lot sooner. He’s clearly a chief that has checked every box in terms of what the community is looking for."
The mayor says those priorities include community policing, leadership in innovation and department morale, which he says has risen dramatically since Rovella took the job on an interim basis six months ago.
“They’re great, great cops,” Rovella said of the officers he’s met since his return. “But they were starving: They were starving for training, they were starving for leadership. They were starving, and they wanted to see a chief, they wanted to talk to a chief, they wanted to know that the chief cared.”
The opening was created when Jason Thody retired as police chief in 2024. He's since taken the same job in New Bedford, MA.
Rovella, 67, was Hartford chief from 2012-18, before becoming state public safety commissioner. He says he’s committing to the job for two years, and he plans to move back to Hartford with his wife.
Rovella says that on the mayor’s request, he’ll focus on police recruiting—a difficult task for departments nationwide. He was already selling the job Thursday:
“It’s trouble for law enforcement around the country: How do we get folks to be cops? This is the best place to be a cop, on that street with our community. Our community cares about our cops, they want to see ‘more cops, more cops, more cops,’ and I want to make sure they give ‘em that.”