Newtown Police Detective Moves Into Law Career

By Andrew Gorosko

A police officer who has held many posts during his tenure at the Newtown Police Department is trading in his badge for a set of law books, as he makes the transition from police detective to self-employed attorney.

Detective Robert Koetsch, 39, who started work in 1993 as a patrol officer, is leaving the police department for a Danbury-based private general law practice, in which he plans to pursue a range of cases including civil and criminal matters.

“Having a police background will certainly help in the criminal [law] area, because you know how [police] investigations happen,” Det Koetsch said.

Det Koetsch has held many assignments while on duty at the police department: patrol officer, member of the Statewide Narcotics Task Force, school resource officer at Newtown High School, detective, motor vehicle accident reconstructionist, and president of the Newtown Police Union for seven years, ending in 2005.

He received a law degree from Quinnipiac University in 2001. He holds a master’s degree in forensics and also a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of New Haven.

For the past several years, Det Koetsch has practiced law on a part-time basis while employed as a town police officer, handling legal work on various juvenile-related cases referred to him by the state Department of Children and Families. Besides that work, he has handled real estate matters, personal injury cases, and wills.

After leaving the police department on May 11 to become a full-time lawyer, Det Koetsch expects that the scope of his law practice will expand.

During the past five years as a detective, Det Koetsch often prepared arrest warrant applications for submission to the courts. He said his legal background put him in a good position to formulate successful warrants. “There’s an art to writing a warrant…I did a lot of the warrants,” he said.

Such documents describe the police’s evidence in criminal cases, explaining to prosecutors and judges why police should receive a warrant to make an arrest.

Many of Det Koetsch’s police investigations focused on illegal drug activity, burglaries, and financial crimes, he explained. It was interesting to unravel how people perpetrated various financial crimes, he said.

As an accident reconstructionist, he investigated major accidents, including the gasoline tanker crashes on Route 302 in Dodgingtown in October 1996, and on South Main Street in September 2003. Det Koetsch said he was interested in probing the physical dynamics occurring in motor vehicle accidents. 

Of his years in law enforcement, Det Koetsch said he especially enjoyed his stint as the school resource officer at the high school. “Being the SRO was a positive role,” he noted. “You see these kids every day. You know them,” he said.

By contrast, when doing patrol work, police sometimes experience another side of life, he said.

“In police work, you always see people at their worst…You see people in a negative aspect…No one ever calls a cop to say everything is going great,” he said.

Det Koetsch said that he will enjoy being his own boss while working as a lawyer.

He added that he will not miss receiving a telephone calls at 2 am telling him to report for duty to investigate a serious motor vehicle accident or serious crime.

Detective Sergeant Robert Tvardzik, who has been Det Koetsch’s supervisor, called the departing detective “an experienced and thorough investigator…We’re going to miss him.”

“He worked a lot of major and serious cases…His legal insight and legal background were assets to all of us…I’m sure his police background is going to help him greatly” while practicing law, Det Sgt Tvardzik said.

Det Koetsch is married to Sergeant Darlene Froehlich-Koetsch of the police department.