Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

New Haven’s Civilian Review Board, which monitors complaints of alleged New Haven Police Department officer misconduct, is supposed to have an established involvement with Yale’s campus police force. However, the Yale Police Department has not answered the board’s invitations to connect.

At the civilian review board meeting on Monday, board member Germano Kimbro mentioned that the board’s ordinance requires it to have “some kind of involvement or oversight” with the YPD. Kimbro recalled that the board has reached out to the YPD’s chief, Anthony Campbell DIV ’09, but has received no response.

“I think it’s a lack of respect for them not to even respond to us,” Kimbro said at the meeting. “For the board to have more credibility with the community, we need to be able to give them answers and say that we at least have the ability to communicate with the Yale Police Department.”

Campbell did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The civilian review board’s ordinance, passed by the Board of Alders in 2019, specifies that the board has the authority to monitor, review and conduct independent investigations of “civilian complaints of police misconduct by police officers empowered to act with municipal police powers in the City of New Haven.” Alyson Heimer, the board’s administrator, explained that the language allows the board potential access to complaints lodged against officers beyond those employed by the New Haven Police Department.

The ordinance also specifically mentions the Yale Police Department. It tasks the board with developing a “memorandum of understanding” with the YPD to “effectuate the goal of assuring transparent civilian review” of any civilian complaint of alleged officer misconduct in New Haven. According to Heimer, such a memorandum could allow the YPD to develop its own method of complaint oversight without involving the city board.

But Heimer said the board has not yet had a chance to come to any understanding with the YPD at all.

On Aug. 23, 2023, Heimer sent Campbell an email from the board formally requesting the chief’s presence at its upcoming meeting to discuss an inflammatory leaflet distributed by the YPD’s union that week. The leaflet, handed out at Yale’s first year move-in day, portrayed New Haven as crime-ridden and unsafe. City officials, and Campbell himself, ultimately condemned the action.

Heimer’s email offered Campbell the opportunity to present for “up to 10 minutes” on the YPD’s plan for the coming school year. She linked the board’s ordinance to her message, reminding him that complaints about the YPD officially fall under the board’s purview.

“If you or a representative are unable to attend on Monday, and since the CRB has responsibility to oversee any Yale Police-related civilian complaints, The Chair would like to set up a future meeting to discuss that process so we are all in compliance,” Heimer wrote in the email.

According to AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios, the board’s chair since 2021, Campbell never responded to the email. Rivera-Berrios said that the board had tried to reach out to Campbell “a few times” before the August 2023 email but that they had never heard back about developing a shared understanding of how the YPD would process civilian complaints with proper oversight.

Separate from the New Haven Civilian Review Board, the YPD had its own “police advisory board,” which was given the power to review and monitor complaints submitted by the public in fall 2022. However, members of the advisory board told the News that the board never met to review complaints. The board became inactive during summer 2024, and the department has not shared plans to revitalize it. 

University officials have expressed support for reviving an oversight board for the police department but have not specified that they will be involved in monitoring civilian complaints.

Campbell previously told the News that the YPD only receives “one or two” civilian complaints each year.

At the civilian review board’s Monday meeting, Kimbro asked NHPD Chief Karl Jacobson, who spoke at the meeting, if he could try to communicate with Campbell on behalf of the board. Jacobson said he agreed with Kimbro’s assessment that more communication with the YPD would be beneficial. Pointing out that Campbell used to head the New Haven Police Department before working for Yale, Jacobson said he was “surprised” Campbell had not accepted the board’s invitation to meet.

“He knows the board,” Jacobson said. “Next time I have a community meeting, I’ll bring him with me.”

Campbell served as the chief of the New Haven Police Department until his retirement in March 2019.