ACLU: Police unions restrict accountability
Report says collective bargaining contracts shield many Connecticut officers from meaningful discipline
A yearlong effort by the ACLU of Connecticut to obtain and review police union contracts shows the agreements limit how officers can be held publicly accountable for violations of department policy or misconduct, the organization said.
The report, “Bargained Away: How Local and State Governments in Connecticut Have Bargained Away Police Accountability,” follows a review of 102 municipal and state police collective bargaining contracts that the ACLU believes shields many officers from meaningful discipline while ensuring increased investment in police services.
“Policing is a political machine in Connecticut, and contract provisions that allow police to avoid meaningful discipline, transparency, and accountability have got to go, as do provisions that guarantee year-overyear increases to police funding,” Dan Barrett, ACLU of Connecticut legal director, said in a statement following the report’s release late last month.
The ACLU’s report came amid weeks of protests and rallies calling for greater police accountability and for local and state governments to decrease investments in police departments following high-profile police killings in other parts of the country.
The organization said that 17 police departments, including the state police, did not respond to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the contracts. The ACLU did analyze an expired version of the state police contract that was found online.
The report also takes issue with the legislature approving a state police union contract that bars the release of certain personnel information related to trooper misconduct. In Connecticut, state employee collective bargaining agreements supersede state law.
The 18-page report highlights a number of issues found in some of the police contracts including provisions that allow for disciplinary hearings to be closed to the public, prohibit the investigation of anonymous complaints, require the destruction of disciplinary records or bar the records from consideration in future discipline and language that limits how a police chief can discipline an officer.
The report acknowledges an instance in Bridgeport where a police officer was kept on salary through two domestic-related arrest because of contract language that said an officer can only be suspended without pay for a felony offense.
The officer, Steven Figueroa, was later fired after six different arrests including a felony sexual assault in Shelton, according to officials. Following the sixth arrest, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim questioned
why it was taking so long to remove Figueroa from the department. Some of the cases remain ongoing in court and Figueroa has pleaded not guilty to charges, state judicial records show.
The contracts that protect officers such as Figueroa, the
ACLU explained, require approval from local governments or the legislature in the case of the state police.
The ACLU outlined steps to resolve the perceived issues in police union contracts including requirements that disciplinary records remain a permanent part of an officer’s file, removing language that disallows a police chief or police commission from issuing summary discipline, removing requirements that disciplinary hearings be closed to the public and excluding language that would exempt these records from public disclosure.
The organization also asked the legislature require tracking of police misconduct complaints, establish a centralized complaint process for misconduct and give greater powers to local civilian review boards or police commissions, among other efforts.
With a special legislative session on police reform looming, the leadership of the legislature’s judiciary committee last week released a draft of potential legislation that would make state police disciplinary files subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, among other measures.
Nicholas Rondinone can be reached at nrondinone@ courant.com.