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Union Upset after Chief Expresses Concern over Killing Unarmed Latino & Black Men

City police union members authorized a vote of no confidence against New Haven Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Wednesday, in part as a result of his handling of recent police shootings, New Haven police union president Louis Cavalier said. Union members will bring the issue to the general membership for a vote next Thursday, Cavalier said. He said dissatisfaction with Ortiz has been accumulating for a time, though the most recent complaints have come as a reaction to his treatment of police officers involved in the series of police shootings in past months. "To start suspending people for doing their job is not the way you send a message," Cavalier said. Cavalier said union members have been most recently displeased by the suspension of a police officer last week for discharging his weapon in a situation Ortiz deemed inappropriate. The New Haven police department has been under heavy public criticism in the wake of multiple fatal police shootings at the end of 2004. On Nov. 8, an unarmed police officer shot and killed Mack Lucky in a New Haven apartment building after an argument, and on Dec. 16, officers shot Hiram Marrero, a patient at a city mental hospital, after he wounded a caregiver. The Board of Aldermen recently created a task force to investigate the use of "excessive force" by police. [more]