New Haven police are investigating after a man was shot on Orchard Street Thursday.
Police said the victim was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after a shooting between Dickerman and Goffe streets around 8:30 p.m.
The case is under investigation. Anyone with information should contact the New Haven Police Department Detective Bureau at 203-946-6304. Callers may remain anonymous.
Rep. Eric Swalwell recalled seeing former Vice President Joe Biden speaking to his school when he was six years old and encouraged people to "pass the torch," so Swalwell suggested Biden do the same during Thursday's Democratic presidential debate.
An attorney for Fotis Dulos, the estranged husband of missing New Canaan mother Jennifer Dulos, said his client’s girlfriend can provide an alibi to explain where Fotis was the morning his estranged wife disappeared.
Jennifer Dulos has been missing since May 24 and her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos, and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, have been charged with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in connection with the case. In the arrest warrants, it states that city surveillance cameras captured a man police said matched the appearance of Fotis throwing away bags of garbage along Albany Avenue in Hartford the day Jennifer disappeared.
In a statement released Thursday, Fotis’ attorney Norm Pattis claimed Troconis knows where Fotis was that morning and that her testimony would help his defense.
”Michelle provides Fotis a complete alibi for the morning of Ms. Dulos’ disappearance. Yet most likely she will not testify as along as the state presses its meritless claims against her. We are calling on the state to drop the charges against Michelle so that she is able to testify in Fotis’ defense. We’re asking that the charges against her be dropped so that she can feel free to testify without fearing the consequences.”
Jennifer, who moved from Farmington to New Canaan after filing for divorce, was last seen while dropping off her children at school in New Canaan on Friday, May 24.
According to court documents, when Jennifer was reported missing and police went to search her home, they found what was determined to be blood. Investigators believe she was the victim of a “serious physical assault.” The case remains a missing persons case.
Both Fotis and Troconis are out on bond, required to wear a GPS monitoring devices and stay within the state of Connecticut.
Troconis’ legal team filed a motion to amend her conditions of release Tuesday, requesting permission for her to travel out of state from June 30 to July 17 to visit a person attorneys say is unconnected with the case.
The same motion also requests barring Fotis or any of his team from contacting Troconis, saying that Fotis' defense attorney has made comments to protect his client at the expense of Troconis.
Pattis has maintained that his client is presumed innocent. On Monday, he claimed that Jennifer may have staged her disappearance like a character in the book "Gone Girl," citing a "very dark 500-page plus novel" that she had written. He has also floated a “revenge suicide” theory.
A spokesperson for Jennifer's family, Carrie Luft, dismissed the “Gone Girl” claim as "false and irresponsible allegations," saying that Jennifer's novel was written well before "Gone Girl" and was not a mystery tome.
"Evidence shows that Jennifer was the victim of a violent attack in her New Canaan home. As of today, she has been missing for a month," her family and friends said in a statement released Monday. "This is not fiction or a movie. This is real life, as experienced every single day by Jennifer’s five young children, her family, and her friends. We are heartbroken. Jennifer is not here to protect her children, and these false and irresponsible allegations hurt the children now and into the future."
As the search continues, police have dedicated a website, FindJenniferDulos.com, and an email address, FindJenniferDulos@newcanaanct.gov, to the investigation. Police have also set up a tipline, 203-594-3544.
Sen. Kamala Harris said if she were elected president she would close the detention centers where migrant children are being held.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., took former Vice President Joe Biden to task over his past opposition to busing to integrate public schools, telling him she faced discrimination and "that little girl was me," during Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate.
Asked about gun violence during Thursday night’s debate, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said “if more guns made us safer, we’d be the safest country on Earth — but it doesn’t work that way.”
Catch up on the full remarks of each of the 10 candidates from night two of the first Democratic debate in Miami, Florida, on June 27.
[[511937142, C]]
Key Quote: "When my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident, my two boys were very, very badly injured, I couldn't imagine what it was like if I didn't have adequate health care available to me. And then, when my son came home from Iraq after a year, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he was given months to live. I can't fathom what would have happened if, in fact, they said 'by the way, the last six months of your life, you are on your own. We're cutting off. You've used up your time.' The fact of the matter is that the quickest, fastest way to do it is build on Obamacare, to build on what we did."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Defeat Donald Trump
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Key Quote: "The last poll I saw had us 10 points ahead of Donald Trump, because the American people understand that Trump is a phony, that Trump is a pathological liar and a racist, and that he lied to the American people during his campaign. He said he was going to stand up for working families. Well, President Trump, you're not standing up for working families when you try to throw 32 million people off their health care that they have and that 83% of your tax benefits go to the top 1%. That's how we beat Trump: We expose him for the fraud that he is."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Take on special interests
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Key Quote: "America does not want to witness a food fight, they want to know how we are going to put food on their table... I'm meeting people who are working two and three jobs. This President walks around talking about and flouting his great economy, right, 'My great economy, my great economy.' You ask him, well, how are you measuring this greatness of this economy of yours? And he talks about the stock market. Well, that's fine if you own stocks. So many families in America do not."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Pass a middle-class and working families tax cut
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Key Quote: "I just don't believe it makes sense to ask working-class families to subsidize even the children of billionaires. I think the children of the wealthiest Americans can pay at least a little bit of tuition. And while I want tuition costs to go down, I don't think we can buy down every last penny for them. There's something else that doesn't get talked about in the college affordability debate. Yes, it needs to be more affordable in this country to go to college. It also needs to be more affordable in this country to not go to college. You should be able to live well, afford rent, be generous to your church and Little League, whether you went to college or not."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Fix our democracy
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Key Quote: "Until you go to the root of the corruption, the money in politics and the fact that Washington is run by the special interests, you are never going solve any of these problems. I have the most comprehensive approach, that experts agree is the most transformative plan to take on political corruption, to get money out of politics through publicly funded elections, to have clean elections. If we do that and get money out of politics, we can guarantee health care as a right, not a privilege, we can deal with institutional racism, we can take on income inequality, and we can take on the corporate corruption that runs Washington."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Pass a family bill of rights – paid leave plan, universal pre-K, affordable daycare
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Key Quote: "Now, we need to put the American people in position to benefit from all these innovations in other parts of the economy. And if we had a value-added tax even at half the European level, it would generate over $800 billion in new revenue, which combined with the money in our hands, it would be the trickle-up economy, from our people, families and communities up. We would spend the money and it would circulate through our regional economies and neighborhoods, creating millions of jobs, making our families stronger and healthier."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? $1,000 freedom dividend for every American adult
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Key Quote: "Donald Trump thinks middle class built America. Ordinary citizens built America. My dad had a way. It's about looking your kid in the eye and saying everything will be okay. Too many people... middle class and poor... had the bottom fall out under this proposal. What I'm saying is we have to be straight forward. We have to understand to return dignity to the middle class. They have to have insurance that is covered and they can afford it. They have to make sure they are able to breathe air that is clean and they have water that they can drink. Look, Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Climate change and lack of economic mobility
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Key Quote: "If we don't clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists. And if you look at the Green New Deal, which I admire the sense of urgency and how important it is to do climate change -- I'm a scientist -- but we can't promise every American a government job. If we want to get universal health care coverage, I believe that health care is a right and not a privilege, but you can't expect to eliminate private insurance for 180 million people, many of whom don't want to give it up."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Climate change
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Key Quote: "I was 6 years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said it's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans. That candidate was then-Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right when he said that 32 years ago. He is still right today. If we are going to solve the issue of automation, pass the torch. If we are going to solve the issue of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we're going to end gun violence for families who are fearful of sending their kids to school, pass the torch."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Ending gun violence
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Key Quote: "[Trump] didn't win by saying he had a plan. He won simply saying 'Make America great again.' We've got to get deeper than just these superficial fixes, as important as they are. Even if we're just talking about the superficial fixes, ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a health care system in the United States. We have a sickness care system in the United States. We just wait until somebody gets sick, and then we talk about who's going pay for the treatment and how they're going to be treated."
What's the first issue you'll tackle as president? Make U.S. best place for children to grow up
On the final night of the Democratic presidential primary, there were sharp exchanges over busing and segregation, a frank admission of failure on racial tensions and an attempt to open a generational divide between the frontrunners and the others.
Ten candidates again faced the challenge of standing out among the crowd.
Here are some of the top moments of the debate in Miami, sponsored by NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo.
LINGERING PAIN OVER BUSING BATTLES
One of the sharpest exchanges of the night came as Kamala Harris attacked Biden on his record opposing federal busing. When she asked him to agree that he had been wrong, he refused.
“I did not oppose busing in America,” Biden insisted. “I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education.”
Harris, who described being the target of racial discrimination, said she had been part of the second class to integrate the Berkeley, California, almost two decades after Brown v. Board of Education.
It was a local decision, Biden said.
“But that’s where the federal government must step in,” Harris said. “That’s why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. That’s why we need to pass the Equality Act. That’s why we need to pass the ERA. Because here are moments in history when states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people.”
Biden said he had supported the Equal Rights Amendment from the beginning, had extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years and ended with “anyway my time is up.”
The moment was the most viral of the debate, and Biden's refusal to acknowledge that he might have been wrong stood in stark contrast to the debate's second-biggest moment involving Pete Buttigieg.
RACIAL TENSIONS IN SOUTH BEND AND ACROSS THE COUNTRY
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was confronted with the racial unrest in his city after a black man, Eric Logan, was killed by a white police officer who said he was attacked with a knife but whose body camera was not on.
Buttigieg suspended his campaign temporarily last week to return to South Bend, where he was heckled and shouted down at a town hall. The shooting put racism and tensions between police departments and black communities into the spotlight.
Asked why after his two terms in office, the city’s police force is still only 6% percent African-American when the city is 26%, he answered bluntly.
“Because I couldn't get it done,” he said. “My community is in anguish right now, because of an officer-involved shooting.”
Buttigieg said he could not take sides until the investigation was complete, but added, “It’s a mess and we’re hurting. And I could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community. All the steps we took from bias training to deescalation, but it didn't save the life of Eric Logan.
“And until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time.”
Two of his competitors, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and California Rep. Eric Swalwell, challenged him on why it was taking so long to diversify the police department, with Swalwell insisting Buttigieg should fire the police chief.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE VETERANS
The debate’s first question established the ideological differences between the field’s veterans and front-runners, Vice President Joe Biden, 76, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77. Biden, asked to explain his statement that the country should not demonize the rich, started with a folksy story about his father telling him that a job was more than a paycheck, that it was about dignity and respect. The country has to return dignity to the middle class, he said. Meanwhile the Trump tax cut benefitting wealthy had put the country in a horrible position, he said.
Biden, whose answers seemed not as clear as those of some of the others, wants to position himself as an electable moderate who can beat President Donald J. Trump by winning over disillusioned Trump supporters.
Sanders has taken on the progressive label, a democratic socialist who says he is fighting for economic equality and working people and against Trump and other oligarchs.
Pressed, he acknowledged that his plans for new government benefits, free public colleges and universities, eliminating student debt and Medicare for all would raise taxes for the middle class. But they would pay less in health care costs, he said.
Among their disagreements: whether to build on Obamacare or replace it with Medicaid for all.
Biden talked about his son’s death from cancer and those of his first wife and a daughter in an automobile accident before saying, “I’m against any Democrat who opposes, takes down Obamacare, and then a Republican who wants to get rid of it.”
Sanders defended Medicare for all although as for how it would be implemented, he said only, “We will have Medicare for all when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone.”
Another difference? The Iraq War, which Sanders singled out. He led the fight against the war while Biden voted for it, he said. Biden said he later led the effort to bring American troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A NEW GENERATION?
Swalwell made a direct pitch for a candidate younger than the field’s frontrunner, Biden.
Swalwell, 38, pivoted from a statement about wiping out debt for teachers to recalling what he said was a comment that Biden made 32 years ago: “It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.”
It is still time to pass the torch if the country is going to confront gun violence, climate change and other crises facing the country, Swalwell said.
Biden was asked if he would like "to sing a torch song" — and though he addressed the original issue, improving education, he did avoided the question of age.
But other candidates were happy to take it on. Buttigieg, 37, tried to interject as “the youngest guy on the stage,” while Sanders called out that he was “a part of Joe’s generation” who had the guts to take on Wall Street, fossil fuel companies and others.
Harris, 54, broke up the argument by saying that the country did not want to witness a food fight. “They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table,” she said.
Later, during a discussion about climate change, Swalwell returned to his theme, pass the torch, prompting the 66-year-old Marianne Williamson to counter that a younger body did not mean new ideas.
THE MULTILINGUAL BUTTIGIEG
The debate's first night featured Spanish, as first former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, then New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker offered a few lines in Espanol. The only Latino candidate in the field, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, added that he would say, "Adiós to Donald Trump."
The question for night two: What language would Buttigieg speak? The South Bend mayor famously learned to speak Norwegian to read more books by a Norwegian author, Erlend Loe, and chatted with Norwegian media crew. His other languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Dari and Maltese, the language of his father’s home country.
Meanwhile, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan and greeted a Voice of America News reporter in Mandarin in April.
In the end, Buttigieg's brief language exchange was in ... Spanish.
ANDREW YANG'S WARDROBE CHOICE
Andrew Yang, a former tech executive and political newcomer, is best known for his proposal for a universal basic income of $12,000 a year. He is calling the payments the “Freedom Dividend.”
Yang, whose internet followers are called the Yang Gang, distinguished himself before a word was uttered.
He appeared without a tie.
He was less successful standing out among the 10 candidates on stage. He got the least amount to speak at 2 minutes, 53 seconds -- although he did use some of that time to drop the only curse of the debate, saying that Russia is "laughing their asses off" for successfully hacking America's democracy.
TAKING ON TRUMP
Biden took on Trump directly the most often, with nine mentions of the president. When asked what his top priority would be in office — the one issue he would pursue above everything else — he answered, "Defeat Donald Trump."
Biden tackled Trump on the very first quesiton he was asked, about the economy: "Look, Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America. Ordinary middle class Americans built America."
Gillibrand and Williamson both mentioned Trump seven times, followed by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Harris, Sanders and Yang with six, Buttigieg and Hickelooper at two and Swalwell at one.
When asked why he could beat Donald Trump, Sanders didn't hold back: "The polls have us 10 points ahead of Donald Trump because the American people understand that Trump is a phony, Trump is a pathological liar and a racist and that he lied to the the American people during his campaign."
Allie Weintraub contributed to this story.
The New Haven Board of Education is looking to terminate Superintendent Dr. Carol Birks, according to a source within the school board.
The source said the board is working on a plan to end Birks’ contract, and they hope to have it in place by the next school board meeting on July 8.
Birks started with the district in 2018.
No other details were immediately available.
All seven of the state-operated highway rest area buildings, including indoor restroom facilities, will be open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week as of Monday, July 1, 2019, according to the governor’s office.
Governor Ned Lamont announced Friday that funding to return the rest areas to round-the-clock operations was included in the budget signed into law earlier this week.
“While certainly well intentioned, I believe the move to shut our state’s rest areas was penny wise and pound foolish,” Lamont said in a statement. “We have to make the necessary investments to attract people to visit and return to our state. This is a small but meaningful step toward making Connecticut more attractive to visitors and our residents alike.”
The Connecticut Department of Transportation maintains the state’s seven rest areas – four on Interstate 84, two on Interstate 91 and one on Interstate 95.
The governor’s office said they are part of a statewide network of facilities, which also include 23 service plazas that are located on interstate highways and the Merritt Parkway and offer parking, food, rest and relief, as well as other amenities.
The seven rest areas are in the following locations:
The girlfriend of the estranged husband of a missing New Canaan mother has made a request to travel outside Connecticut and she will be in court Friday.
Michelle Troconis and her boyfriend, Fotis Dulos, are facing charges in the disappearance of Fotis’ estranged wife, 50-year-old Jennifer Dulos, and are accused of tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. Both Troconis and Fotis have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Troconis’ legal team filed a motion Tuesday to amend her conditions of release, requesting permission for her to travel out of state from June 30 to July 17 to visit a person her attorneys say is not connected with the case. Troconis is currently required to wear a GPS monitoring device and stay within the state of Connecticut.
The same motion also requests barring Fotis or any of his team from contacting Troconis, saying that Fotis' defense attorney has made comments to protect his client at the expense of Troconis.
Fotis’ attorneys have previously requested access to Troconis and permission for Fotis to speak with her and his children.
"We are calling on the state to drop the charges against Michelle so that she is able to testify in Fotis’ defense. We’re asking that the charges against her be dropped so that she can feel free to testify without fearing the consequences,” the statment from Pattis says.
Jennifer Dulos has been missing since May 24 and was last seen dropping her children off at school. According to public filings, she and Fotis were in the midst of a divorce and custody battle over the couple’s five children.
According to court documents, when police went to search Jennifer's home after she was reported missing they found what was determined to be blood and investigators believe she was the victim of a “serious physical assault.” The case remains a missing persons case.
City surveillance cameras captured a man police said matched the appearance of Fotis throwing away bags of garbage along Albany Avenue in Hartford the day Jennifer disappeared, according to court documents. A woman matching Troconis’ description was also seen in the video.
Investigators have spent the better part of the last month searching for clues related to Jennifer's disappearance at locations all over the state.
Pattis has maintained that his client is presumed innocent.
On Monday, he claimed that Jennifer may have staged her disappearance like a character in the book "Gone Girl," citing a "very dark 500-page plus novel" that she had written. He has also floated a “revenge suicide” theory.
A spokesperson for Jennifer's family, Carrie Luft, dismissed the “Gone Girl” claim as "false and irresponsible allegations," saying that Jennifer's novel was written well before "Gone Girl" and was not a mystery tome.
"Evidence shows that Jennifer was the victim of a violent attack in her New Canaan home. As of today, she has been missing for a month," her family and friends said in a statement released Monday. "This is not fiction or a movie. This is real life, as experienced every single day by Jennifer’s five young children, her family, and her friends. We are heartbroken. Jennifer is not here to protect her children, and these false and irresponsible allegations hurt the children now and into the future."
As the search for Jennifer continues, police have dedicated a website, FindJenniferDulos.com, and an email address, FindJenniferDulos@newcanaanct.gov, to the investigation. Police have also set up a tipline, 203-594-3544.
Hot temperatures on Friday could be followed by some severe weather over the weekend.
The NBC Connecticut meteorologists have issued a First Alert for the threat of severe storms on Saturday.
The storms will move in Saturday afternoon or evening, most likely after 3 p.m. The entire state could be affected.
If the storms do become severe, they could contain small hail and damaging wind.
Track the storms with our interactive radar.
Gillette is recalling thousands of Venus Simply3 disposable razors over laceration concerns because the blades are misaligned and can cause users to cut themselves while shaving.
The company said the recalled razors were sold in two types of packages: a Venus Simply3 Disposable Razor 4-pack and a Daisy 12+1 Venus Simply3 Bonus Pack which included one free Venus Simply3 razor. About 87,000 packages are being recalled in the U.S.
The recalled razors were sold at food, drug and merchandise stores nationwide from January 2019 through May 2019 for between $6 and $10.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday Gillette has received one report of a consumer who was cut while using the recalled razor. The agency said a problem during manufacturing resulted in the misalignment of the blades in the razors, posing a higher risk of cuts during normal use.
The CPSC said consumers should immediately stop using the recalled product and contact Gillette to receive a postage-paid return label to return the razors and receive a voucher for a replacement.
Customer can contact Gillette at 800-362-1258 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday. For more information on the recall visit www.gillettevenus.com and click on Safety Notification for more information.
A Southington man was arrested on Thursday, charged with possession of child porn, voyeurism, and disseminating voyeuristic materials.
Police said 50-year-old John Starrs was taking pictures of a minor without that minor's knowledge or consent.
Southington police said they began an investigation into Starrs in September 2018 after receiving information that he may be in possession of images of child porn and that he was sharing them on an adult-oriented website.
Investigators executed a search warrant at Starrs' Southington home and seized electronic evidence, according to police.
Forensic testing done by Southington police and state police revealed several images and and a video of known pornography, police said.
Starrs was taken into custody on Thursday and was released on $75,000 bond. He is due in Bristol Superior Court on July 8.
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says its water tests all came back negative for bacteria and that means all beaches and swimming areas are open this weekend.
Shoreline:
Lakes and Ponds:
The string of NYPD suicides in the news tells you all you need to know in terms of first responder wellness. Post-traumatic stress disorder among police officers is a serious issue, and it's become something that police, fire, EMS, and others in the emergency services community need to focus upon.
This week multiple agencies and organizations hosted an intensive day of wellness training for first responders in Southington, to help prevent another tragic incident from occurring.
More than 140 people from 66 different agencies attended. Some came from as far as Boston and upstate New York to attend.
The day included presentations from Baltimore’s Police Wellness Unit, an FDNY counselor who is a 9/11 veteran, and many others.
First responders learned about awareness strategies on how to deal with the effects of critical incidents, cumulative stress, and trauma experienced by dispatchers to people who take the first 911 call all the way to those at the scene.
A survey of almost 8,000 officers on PTSD by the Fraternal Order of Police and NBC owned stations, which included Connecticut officers, took a deeper look at the issues officers reported experiencing after stressful calls.
The event also featured an update on the legislation that lawmakers passed this session that provides mental health benefits for police and firefighters. It also calls for a study to include EMS workers in the legislation.
A New Britain mother was arrested Thursday after police said she noticed her 18-month-old daughter bruised and vomiting, but never took the child to the hospital for treatment.
Police interviewed 29-year-old Victoria Krzeminski on Sunday after being contacted by the Department of Children and Families about a possible case of child abuse.
The toddler was at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford for an unrelated issue when hospital staff noticed bruising on the child's legs, stomach, and back and Krzeminski had no explanation for the injuries, according to police.
As investigators talked to the mother, she told them she noticed the bruising two weeks earlier and even noticed the bruise on her daughter's back got worse, police said. It got so bad that the child began vomiting and was unable to walk, according to police.
Krzeminski told investigators she was afraid to bring her daughter to the hospital because she already had an open case with DCF, police said.
Krzeminski's boyfriend, Dylan Michael Vitale, was arrested on Monday for allegedly causing the injuries to the little girl.
Because authorities said Krzeminski didn't seek immediate care for her daughter, police charged her with cruelty to persons and risk of injury to a minor. She was held on $200,000 and was expected to be in court on Friday.
As temperatures begin to sizzle and anticipation for July 4th builds, community pools around the state are opening up and hitting capacity, such as Colt Park in Hartford, which had 800 people on Thursday at its peak.
On Friday afternoon, Priscilla Diaz, who came to the pool as a child, was there with her three granddaughters.
“They have good safety here and have excellent lifeguards.”
The staff said they have 13 lifeguards and six to seven are working when the pool is open. Mother of five Taryn Cole said she brings her mother along too.
“I have my mom here present, so she can be extra eyes.”
Cole said she has some strict rules for her kids.
“To stick together. I say don’t cross the line. Of course, no jumping in the pool and to listen to the lifeguard.”
Diaz said she tells her grandchildren the same and hopes other kids and teenagers will be cautious, especially if they’re swimming with no adults around.
“A lot of kids don’t know how to swim, and when you just jump into a pool and you don’t know how to swim and there’s no lifeguard, you’re in danger.
Hartford police say all four of its public pools - at Keeney Park, Pope Park, Goodwin Park, and Colt Park, are fenced and have alarms that sound when the water is disturbed in the off hours. There is also CCTV and police patrol the areas at night to look out for anyone trying to take a dip after hours.
The Girl's Future Firefighter Camp in Rocky Hill is a training program that focuses on empowering young ladies to think outside the box.
For the last four years, the all-girls camp has created outlets for empowerment while molding the new generation of leaders.
The 13- to 18-year-olds go through a host of training programs including 911 calls from dispatch experts.
Jazmin Franklin is new to the camp but says it’s opening her eyes to a potential career.
“It’s been a very fun process and you have a team of girls all striving for the same goal,” said Franklin. “There’s a lot of details that not a lot of people know about.”
The camp includes training in many areas of the fire department, including emergency medical services, fire prevention, risk reduction, fire investigation and personnel support.
Several informal sessions are included in the camp; CPR/AED/first aid, physical fitness training, and fire apparatus familiarization.
Kelly Mayo just graduated high school and is following in her family’s footsteps of service.
“Firefighting runs in the family and I want to maintain our legacy of helping others,” said Mayo. “Being a leader is more than just telling someone what to do.”
Twenty-two girls have enrolled in the program.
Instructors from across the state and the U.S. are volunteering their time.
The GFFC curriculum includes ropes and knots, ladder operations, hose line operations, arson investigation, code enforcements and report writing.
Rocky Hill Fire Captain Shelly Carter is the leading role model and creator.
“It’s important for these young ladies to know that they can do anything they put their mind to,” said Captain Carter. “They don’t always have to be just a firefighter, but they could be in leadership positions inside emergency agencies.”
Carter created the program to inform young girls about the opportunities in public service.
“We need to add more woman to the fire service,” Carter said. “Every single thing that I do, I want these young ladies to understand.”
The camp meets on July 12, July 19, July 26 and August 2.
GFFC is free to those who want to attend.
For more information about the Girl’s Future Firefighter Camp, click here.
One person is dead after an accident involving a log truck in Franklin, though police said the death may not have been caused by the crash.
Connecticut State Police said the crash involves a van and a log truck and it happened near Route 32 and Thompson Road.
Route 32 is closed in the area.
No other information was immediately available.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
