Bryfonski: 'Nobody's Satisfied with the Time it Took to Get Inside'

Last night, Bedford Police and town officials held a community meeting at Bedford High School specifically targeted at quelling residential fears and providing a level of security and comfort to those who have slept uneasy in the nearly two weeks since the reported home invasion at 7 Proclamation Court that left a Bedford doctor and his wife bloodied and in serious condition.

One of the many concerns expressed by some of the roughly 80 residents in attendance was the 30-minute time span that lapsed between the two minutes it took the first officer to arrive at the scene following the emergency call and the time police entered the home and attended to 52-year-old Eduardo Quesada and his two-year-old child who was still in the home.

Bedford Police Chief John Bryfonski explained that it was the responding officers understanding that the suspect could still be in the house, and that Bedford and State Police, both who were quickly mobilized, didn't have the SWAT capabilities to immidiatly enter the home and confront a potential threat without endangering themselves and putting the victims at further risk.

"Nobody's satisfied with the time it took to get inside the home. One second is too long," said Bryfonski. "There's a host of aspects that are involved in conducting an operation of this nature, a complex location under complex circumstances and while I recognize that a lot of folks believe that that period of time is too long ... it's a matter of making sure we have the resources available to address and conduct a safe tactical operation under those trying circumstances.

"I'm confident there was no time wasted," he continued. "Folks may criticize how long it may have taken. In talking with both our personnel and New Hampshire State Police personnel, it was conducted with all speed and due diligence possible. Everything that could have been done was done as quickly as possible."

Because state police were involved in a shift change, and because several Bedford officers were arriving early, Bryfonski said every resource in the area quickly responded to the location of the crime and secured the perimeter of the home.

Four tactical teams then entered the home and helped EMS attend to Quesada and his unharmed child, the chief added.

"Clearly the officers were aware of the fact that they had one victim that was seriously injured and they were told that another victim was seriously injured, perhaps even more so seriously than the first victim, and that there was a child inside," said Bryfonski. "Not to diminish in anyway the necessity to get an adult victim out of there they, but we're not going to waste one iota of time to try to get in there and save that child."

"Let's look at the results," he continued. "They got into that house. They extracted the doctor and the child and both are living and alive today. That's the result. That's the testimony to the work they did."

Following the community meeting, several residents – including a Bedford Patch blogger Kathy Benuck – expressed support for the police department and called on town officials and voters to support the allocation of additional resources to Bedford Police.

"We've been paying attention to the wrong metric all this time: response time," said resident Jonathan Zdziarski who attended the meeting and submitted a Letter to the Editor shorty thereafter. "This is a bad baseline to determine budgetary decisions for BPD, and this crime is exactly why. The right metric is that half hour to secure the scene, and get Dr. Quesada medical attention.

"I have great respect for our top-notch police department," Zdziarski added. "The resources we give them now are going to ultimately determine entry times in the future. We must have better foresight in determining the budgets for our emergency services. I urge the town council to consider allocating more resources for both personnel and equipment, and focus on the more important metric of entry time, rather than just response time."

Benuck echoed Zdziarski's sentiment in her most recent blog post.

"We have a fantastic Bedford Police Department. Make no mistake about that," she said. "But we have a seriously undermanned Police Department that places dangerous burdens on the men and women who serve to protect us everyday. We have a Police Department in which we can take tremendous pride, and one in which our sworn officers are at the highest levels of training and are completely knowledgeable about all the technological advances to today's policing."

Bedford Patch will continue to follow this case and will provide updates as they come available. In the meantime, follow us on our Facebook page, Twitter feed, and don't forget to sign up for our FREE daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.