Old Saybrook chief didn’t follow through on decertification

Officer targeted in inquiry last summer has not yet been placed on national database used to trace police misconduct

Last summer, a department investigation found evidence Officer Tyler Schulz had sex while on duty, was “untruthful under oath” and tampered with his GPS equipment to conceal his whereabouts.

Old Saybrook’s police chief never followed through on his pledge to seek decertification of an officer who resigned amid troubling allegations six months ago, reducing the barriers the officer would face if he applies for jobs in other states.

“This is just another example of how we can’t continue to expect police to police themselves,” said Claudine Constant, the public policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. “The fact that the police department didn’t pursue (decertification), again, shows that they’re only interested in protecting themselves rather than protecting the public.”

Last summer, a department investigation found evidence Officer Tyler Schulz had sex while on duty, was “untruthful under oath” and tampered with his GPS equipment to conceal his whereabouts.

Schulz was already on thin ice with the department after previous misconduct, including an arrest in connection with his off-duty involvement in a fight at a restaurant, though the charge against him was dropped.

Chief Michael Spera told the town’s police commission about the latest allegations in a letter on Aug. 3, saying the town had reached an agreement for Schulz to resign, effective Aug. 5; the deal included a controversial promise by the town to do what it could to keep further details about the latest allegations a secret.

Spera also told the town’s police commission in that letter that he would submit a request to the state’s Police Officer Standards & Training Council (POST) to decertify Schulz.

But as of Jan. 27, POST officials said they had not received a request to decertify Schulz. A council official said POST cannot act to decertify an officer on its own; a department must formally request decertification.

Records show Spera did notify state officials in mid-October that Schulz had resigned while under investigation.

That move should prevent Schulz from being hired by another law enforcement agency in Connecticut.

State law prohibits law enforcement agencies from hiring officers who were “dismissed for malfeasance or other serious misconduct” or who left while under investigation for such behavior. Schulz is now on a list of officers ineligible for employment at other Connecticut agencies, an official with the Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection, which oversees POST, said in an email.

But because Schulz has not been decertified, POST will not submit the allegations against him to a national database law enforcement agencies use to track police misconduct.

POST enters information about officers who are decertified in Connecticut into a national database, called the National Decertification Index. Law enforcement agencies nationwide check the database before they hire officers to see if they were decertified in another state.

POST, however, does not enter information into the database about Connecticut officers who — like Schulz — resigned under investigation, according to Karen Boisvert, POST’s academy administrator.

Constant from the ACLU described decertification as “one way to make extra sure that a police employee with a history of abuse and violence can’t be hired in CT or anywhere else in the country.”

“That measure is there for a reason,” she added.

Emails requesting comment from Spera were not returned by midday Friday.

When asked recently for a request for comment for a previous story, Schulz told a reporter he would have her arrested if she contacted him again.