Two highly-regarded members of the Milford Police Department, Deputy Chief Tracy Mooney and Detective Sgt. Antonio Vitti, will retire next month with a combined 44 years of service.
The Board of Police Commissioners, at their regular monthly meeting on Monday, discussed both pending retirements and wished the employees well.
According to the Police Commission minutes, Vitti will assume the position of executive director of the Milford Rape Crisis Center. His retirement is effective on December 11, 2014. Deputy Chief Mooney's post-retirement plans were not disclosed during the meeting; however, her retirement is effective December 4, 2014.
Mooney joined the Milford Police Department in 1994. She has served in both undercover and investigative capacities with the South Central Office of the Statewide Narcotics Task Force, where she earned two unit citations. She has served on the department's Bicycle Patrol Unit, the Tactical Unit and the Honor Guard. Mooney is a POST certified municipal police academy instructor.
In 2011, then-Captain Mooney was promoted to Deputy Chief, second in command of the Milford Police Department. As Deputy Chief, Mooney has been in charge of operations, including the patrol and detective divisions. She is the highest ranking female officer in Milford Police Department history, described by Chief Keith Mello at the time of her promotion as “one of the brightest law enforcement managers in the State of Connecticut.”
Sgt. Vitti was a longtime president of the Milford Police Benevolent Association, and member of the Rape Crisis Center Board of Directors. With 22 years of distinguished police service, Vitti currently supervises the department's Special Investigations Unit.
Vitti is well known in the community, both for his distinguished police work and also for a devastating medical issue he faced in 2010. Diagnosed with severe viral myocarditis, Vitti ultimately received a heart transplant at Hartford Hospital and, despite the odds, returned to resume his police career.
(Read the full story, with quotes, in this week's print edition of the Milford Mirror, which will be on news stands Thursday.)