New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Sullivan weighs in on criminal justice reform
While David X. Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes may not agree on much, Sullivan — the endorsed Republican challenging
Hayes for her seat — has called for an investigation and action into alleged discrimination against Hayes on Capitol Hill.
Hayes, in an interview with Hearst Connecticut
Media, said she has experienced racism in Washington, D.C., and that her husband, a police officer in Waterbury, has witnessed discriminatory policing
there. In D.C., she said she has been stopped repeatedly by the same Capitol Police officer, asking for her identification every time she entered the U.S. Capitol Complex even eight months after she began work as a member of Congress.
“Like all Americans, she and her family deserve respect and the rights and privileges protected by the U.S. Constitution,” Sullivan said. “I will not stand idly by while she suffers from racist and abusive discriminatory policing.”
As Congress debates a reform bill named for George Floyd, whose death has sparked more than 40 days of protests across the country as well as calls to defund police, Sullivan, who spent 30 years as a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, said he supports some reforms because “no country is perfect.” Sullivan filed paperwork to challenge Hayes — his first run for elected office — three days after he retired in 2019.
Democrats and Republicans “agree on 75 percent” of criminal justice reform issues, he said. On the use of body cameras, for example, support is nearly unanimous.
Sullivan, a New Fairfield resident who was born and raised in Danbury, said he supports a national database for use-of-force incidents, so that officers who are regularly involved in using excess force won’t be easily able to seek employment at other departments.
And he said he supports increased “accountability and transparency for civilian complaints of officers.” He did not say whether that includes subpoena power for an independent review board, a hot-button issue that has been proposed in the Connecticut General Assembly, as well as the U.S. House bill.
Hayes recently voted in favor of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which among other things, would grant subpoena power to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and create a grant program for state attorneys general to develop authority to conduct independent investigations into problematic police departments.
The bill would also remove qualified immunity for police officers, which Sullivan said he does not support. Hayes did not return an emailed request for comment on her support for those specific provisions in the legislation.
Qualified immunity should be reformed, Sullivan said, adding that without qualified immunity — which protects officers from civil lawsuits in most cases — he fears a “chilling effect” on officers, who would be unwilling to do their job “for fear of being sued civilly.”
“Law enforcement officers have to have some degree of protection from civil lawsuits,” he said. “I think the standard can be revised, but you can’t get rid of qualified immunity,” Sullivan said. “I think the standard right now is something along the lines that you have to demonstrate that an officer engaged in a willful disregard of
someone’s civil rights, and I know there’s discussions about perhaps a reckless disregard standard or a gross negligence standard. So I think that’s open to discussion, and I think discussion is really important among all the people, whether it be members of Congress, members of the state legislature, members of the community and certainly our law enforcement community.”
Sullivan said he believes police should receive more funding for training, and does not support reducing the number of officers in towns and cities in favor of other first responders — a centerpiece of the “defund police” movement. He believes departments need more funding for training and to revise best practices for emergency response.
Sullivan criticized the protests and efforts to remove statues of racist historical figures, calling it a “mob.” On the beheading of a Christopher Columbus statue in Waterbury over the July 4 holiday weekend, Sullivan said he hopes that the individuals responsible are “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
“There’s a lot ot talk about and right now, we’re not getting that done with the desecration or destruction of statues,” he said. “The looting, the riots, the shootings, the killings. The rule of the mob should not drive the discussion, because there is no discussion. It’s a soliloquy. They’re going to tell us how we’re going to do things.”