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A broader investigation is ongoing, police said, and more officers are facing repercussions.
News broke of the death pool over the weekend of Nov. 30. Amid an investigation Chief of the Hartford Police Jason Thody announced the punishment about a week later.
Thody said that Det. Jeffrey Placzek has been demoted and suspended without pay for 120 days.
“It is critical that every member of the Hartford Police Department conduct themselves in a way that builds and strengthens a relationship of trust with our community,” Thody said in a statement, “and this conduct undermined that relationship and undermined the work of every single officer on our force.”
Placzek will be allowed to return back to work once he passes a fitness for duty evaluation as well as completing a restorative justice program, police said. Placzek was removed from Hartford Police’s major crimes division on Friday, Dec. 4, and was charged by his department with conduct unbecoming of a police officer, police said.
WHAT HAPPENED
Placzek, a 16-year veteran of the police department, is in trouble for proposing a betting pool among colleagues about where the city’s first homicide of 2021 would occur. The wager was communicated to other officers via text messages.
It doesn’t matter that the betting pool was never started, Thody said. The discussion among officers is enough to warrant discipline, he said.
Prior to this, Placzek’s disciplinary record contained only one instance in which he self-reported damaging an elevator button with his foot, police said.
Thody said he intends to have the internal investigation wrapped up before Christmas.
In addition to Placzek, officers who received the text may also be in hot water.
Thody said that the Major Crimes Division Supervisor and department media spokesperson Lt. Paul Cicero received the text and has been removed from his public speaking position and suspended from the major crimes unit.
Cicero, supervisors who received the text and didn’t report it up the chain of command, and other officers may face additional discipline based on the outcome of the investigation, police said.
“The Major Crimes Division has done tremendous work this year working hand in hand with the community,” Thody said, “and this text message directly opposes the spirit of that work and the results that they’ve gotten.”
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