A judge has ruled against former Wethersfield Police Chief James Cetran in a long-running and bitter labor dispute, but Cetran’s attorney said he’ll appeal — just as he’s appealing a previous decision by the same judge.
Cetran sued the town for violating a signed agreement, but a trial referee ruled last month that Cetran had already broken the deal and thus has no standing to sue.
The decision is the latest development in a years-long dispute between Wethersfield officials and Cetran, who served on its police force for 47 years before leaving in 2021.
Cetran, 73, earned notoriety as one of Connecticut’s longest-serving police officers, but the final years of his work were marred by controversy within the department and clashes with the town manager.
Two years after he left, a consultant concluded that cronyism had pervaded the internal affairs system within Wethersfield’s police force for years, adding to what it called an atmosphere of fear and mistrust among officers.
“We had no code of conduct. The Internal Affairs process was weaponized,” police union President Holton said after the report was issued two years ago. “If they liked you, you’d get a written reprimand. If they didn’t like you, you could get suspended.”
But Cetran’s attorney, Rachel Baird, has maintained that account doesn’t represent the truth. Instead, Cetran was targeted by a clique of enemies in the department as well as then-Town Manager Gary Evans, she has said.
Cetran spent the last 18 years of his career as chief of the department, but the final one included a steadily worsening rift with the town manager that led to Cetran’s lengthy suspension followed by the contested retirement agreement.
Noting that Cetran rose through the ranks and became chief in 2003, Judge Joseph Shortall wrote in his May 29 decision “His last year in that office was not a happy one due to differences between him and then-Town Manager Gary Evans.”
Evans and Cetran clashed over who had authority to discipline police officers, and the disagreement escalated steadily until Evans put him on paid leave in November of 2020. They worked out a deal for Cetran to return to work in January 2021 and retire that August; the written agreement specifically said Cetran would continue to address disciplinary and union issues in the department.
Within the next four months, though, the agreement broke down. Cetran rescinded his retirement letter, saying Evans had violated the agreement by interfering in the police disciplinary process. The town council voted 6-1 in June to fire Cetran, and the town later hired Rafael Medina as its new police chief.
Cetran filed three suits over his departure, with one claiming that Medina was never hired by a town manager and therefore isn’t legally the chief. Cetran and Baird contend Wethersfield’s charter gives the town manager — not the council — authority to hire and fire police chiefs.
In the case that was rejected last week, Cetran claimed the town violated the deal he and Evans reached because it fired him rather than submitting the dispute to a court. The agreement specifically said disputes would be settled by a judge.
But Shortall said that by rescinding his retirement letter, Cetran had already violated the deal — and therefore forfeited his right to sue the town for breach of contract.
Baird noted that Shortall had ruled against Cetran in a previous lawsuit that argued a different point of law; that case is pending at state Appellate Court.
“This is the same judge. There’s a fundamental difference in how we see the town charter,” Baird said.
Shortall sided with the town’s contention that the council has authority to fire a chief, she noted. But that would mean the council also is responsible for hiring a chief, and it never voted on Medina, she said.
“The judge ruled the council has the authority to terminate a chief, but that means they also have the authority to hire. The council never voted on it, the current chief was hired by the town manager,” she said.
