#Bridgeport, CT – Mayor Joe Ganim today announced the resignation of Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett. Gaudett has served as Bridgeport Chief of Police since 2009 and is a 33 veteran of the department. Chief Gaudett will be taking a new position as a consultant for emergency communications within the Bridgeport Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, reporting directly to the Mayor’s office. At the same time, Mayor Ganim is announcing that he will name longtime Bridgeport Police Captain Armando J. “AJ” Perez to the post of police chief of the city of Bridgeport. Perez is a highly decorated officer who has served the Bridgeport Police Department for 32 years. Recently Captain Perez oversaw the Bridgeport Violent Crime Reduction Task Force and he has served as head of the department’s detective bureau for the last two years. Perez is set to become the first Cuban-American Chief of Police in Connecticut History.
“I want to thank Joe Gaudett for his dedicated service to the public safety of Bridgeport and I look forward to working with him in his new role,” said Mayor Ganim. “I am also elated to name AJ Perez, a widely respected veteran of the Bridgeport Police Department as our city’s next chief. This is a new day in Bridgeport and we will have a new direction in our police department. We will return to the fundamentals of community policing and effective law enforcement, building up the size of the police force and the trust between the Bridgeport police and our community. AJ Perez is a natural leader that will inspire his fellow Bridgeport police and I look forward to swearing him in.”
“I am honored and humbled to be chosen as Bridgeport’s next police chief,” said Perez. “We are going to do great things in the city of Bridgeport, and I believe in the leadership that Mayor Ganim is providing to our city and to the police department. Together and with all the talented men and women of the Bridgeport police department we will make our city safer. We believe in the Bridgeport that can be!”
Mayor Ganim will publicly swear in AJ Perez as Bridgeport’s next police chief at a public ceremony to be held at the Bridgeport City Council Chambers located at 45 Lyon Terrace on Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 5:00 p.m.