Albert Murphy, the arbitrator assigned to untangle the knotted relationship between Newtown Police Chief James Lysaght, Jr and the Newtown Police Commission, completed his work and issued a report to the parties involved last week. His report, which was released to the public this week, is important because it establishes “findings of fact,” which will form the basis for the Police Commission’s decision whether or not to fire the police chief and for any subsequent court action that grows out of the commission’s decision. The real value of the report, however, is that it details the long trail of causes and the unfortunate effects of a breakdown in the administration of Newtown’s Police Department.

There is no public agency we can think of where trust plays a more important role than the police department. Public safety and security are the first duty of government. If we are not safe in our homes, the value of all the other services provided by government is degraded. And just this week in New York City, we have seen what happens when public trust in the police department is shaken.

Fortunately, Newtown’s Police Department has a long tradition of professionalism, and NPD’s rank-and-file earns and enjoys the implicit trust of Newtown citizens every day. Mr Murphy’s report, however, shows clearly that the department’s ethos of professionalism and trust has broken down when it comes to the relationship between those charged with running the department. After selecting Chief Lysaght from a pool of 118 applicants for the police chief’s job in 1996, the Police Commission’s evaluations of the chief began to cool a little over a year later, with subsequent evaluations growing more harsh and threatening. Quickly, the chief and the police commission fell into adversarial roles, doing little to help each other do their important jobs. Communications broke down. Chief Lysaght neglected to bring information to the attention of the commission that would have helped them make better decisions. And in one instance, Mr Murphy found the chief had been flat-out insubordinate. For its part, the commission failed to come to the assistance of the chief with advice and guidance when it was clear that he was in over his head in trying to administer highly technical projects such as constructing a radio communications tower and upgrading the department’s computer system. Mr Murphy’s report describes the police chief and the Police Commission as “ships passing in the night, dimly aware of the other’s presence.”  Clearly, they did not trust each other, and wanted to have as little to do with each other as possible.

The Newtown Police Department has important work to do and many challenges to meet. In running that department, the police chief and the Police Commission need to be engaged and committed to success. There will always be frustrations and difficult issues to resolve. Unfortunately this police chief and this Police Commission let those frustrations and difficulties degenerate into personality conflicts. They did not rise to the challenge – the challenge sunk them. In the end, instead of being committed to success, they became, in a perverse way, committed to discrediting each other. Somehow finding fault with each other replaced their mission of finding success for the department.

While Mr Murphy has found that there is just cause for the termination of Police Chief Lysaght’s contract, he urges the two sides to sit down in a sincere attempt to “re-establish a relationship” that would allow the chief to stay on and relieve the town of the “expense and uncertainty” of finding a new police chief. Frankly, we don’t hold out much hope for that. Far lesser challenges have already defeated them.