2 Commissioners Want GPS on North Branford Police Chief’s Car

NORTH BRANFORD, CT - A motion to put a GPS monitoring device on Police Chief's Matthew Canelli's vehicle was defeated by a 3-2 vote of the Board of Police Commissioners at its most recent meeting.

Commissioner Victor Pietrandrea was the one who brought up the issue of GPS devices on police vehicles at the meeting. He told his fellow commissioners that he felt that GPS devices needed to be on every vehicle in the department.

The minutes of the commission meeting do not state the reason why Pietrandrea believes the police cars should have GPS devices installed on them.

Canelli responded that the issue has been discussed before and that it simply can't be done. He explained that GPS devices won't work in the department's administrative vehicles, because they do under cover work, go to New Haven, etc.

Fellow Commissioner Craig Miller supported Pietrandrea's position, however, and said that while there might be an issue with putting GPS devices on lieutenant vehicles and that there might be issues with detective bureau vehicles due to the police union, he didn't see an issue with putting a device on Canelli's car.

Pietrandrea than made a motion, which was seconded by Miller, to put a GPS device on Canelli's car and to begin discussions with the union on placing GPS devices on the remaining cars used by the department.

The motion failed however, as Board of Police Commission Chairman John Pollock, Vice Chair David Hall and Commissioner Tony Catapano voted against installing a GPS device on the police chief's car - meaning that it lost by a one-vote margin, since Pietrandrea and Miller voted in favor.