Stephen J. Connolly is excited about his new job as Executive Director of the Office of Independent Review and said he plans to become a familiar face as an outsider within the Department. 

He said that his role has been confused in the arenas of politics and the press and that he sees his mandate as one of working to help the Department by ensuring the Department properly polices itself.

“I will not be conducting my own investigations. Our philosophy is that the Department in many ways is best suited to review and address critical allegations of misconduct,” he explained.
“I’ll have access to Department investigators and I will talk to Department decision makers,” he said. “I will have a front row seat, able to access files and determine the thoroughness of an investigation and the reasonableness of the resolution.”

Mr. Connolly, 44, was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts and graduated from the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.  After college he did volunteer work with disadvantaged youngsters in the inner city sections of Syracuse and Brooklyn, New York. He married and moved to Long Beach in 1987.

He and his wife worked as teachers in a Catholic School and he obtained a Masters Degree in English Literature from UCI. The couple is raising three children: Two girls are aged 18 and 16 and their boy is 12. While working as a teacher and raising his family, Mr. Connolly spent four years attending night classes at Loyola University School of Law in Los Angeles.  He had harbored an interest in law since elementary school. One of his teachers was adjunct professor Michael Gennaco, a federal civil rights prosecutor who would later be named the first executive director of the Office of Independent Review for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. More...