POLICING THE POLICE
Behind closed doors, Connecticut police rarely face severe punishment for misconduct
Police officers across the region have been caught engaging in a variety of misdeeds in recent years — ranging from being late for duty to improper use of force to breaking into cars.
But superiors rarely handed down the most serious forms of punishment, a Hearst Connecticut Media Group investigation of hundreds of cases found.
Instead, through in- house proceedings shielded from public scrutiny, departments often resorted to discipline that experts say is
more of a slap on the wrist and insufficient to halt or reduce future misconduct.
Hearst Connecticut Media over the past nine months compiled and examined more than 1,800 internal charges of alleged officer misconduct at 30 local police departments primarily in Fairfield and New Haven counties. The internal investigation cases covered the period from 2015 to 2020.
Among internal charges that were sustained, meaning misconduct was found, about three- quarters resulted in a verbal warning, reprimand, counseling or order for more training.
About one- quarter of sustained charges drew a suspension from duty, while about 1 percent resulted in the officer being fired.
Most officers put under the microscope faced no discipline at all because their colleagues handling the internal investigations found no wrongdoing.
Overall, about 40 percent of the charges against officers reviewed for this story were sustained by the department, while the rest were dismissed as unfounded, not sustained, exonerated, and in some cases, officers quit midprobe.
The rate of sustained charges goes down to almost one- third if one department, which had an unusually high rate of sustaining charges, is excluded.
In one case reviewed in- depth by Hearst Connecticut — a matter which has not been reported on publicly before — an officer, while saying “you gonna go to sleep,” used an improper chokehold on a man who cried out “I can’t breathe.” The officer, who had been disciplined at least twice before, served a brief suspension and went on, records show, to engage in misconduct at least two more times; though details on his other misconduct cases were limited.
Meanwhile, numerous departments have withheld records for months, flouting timelines under the state’s public records law and — despite a national push for greater transparency and accountability — keeping troves of data and documents about police misconduct effectively secret.
Other agencies provided only vague descriptions of officer misconduct. It’s unclear if the records provided accurately reflect the total number of claims of excessive force.
Only a small portion of charges Hearst Connecticut reviewed were clearly labeled as use- of- force investigations. Improper use- of- force allegations against 12 officers were sustained while 28 officers were cleared — more than twice as many.
Still, the documents that were provided outlined other grave offenses, such as lying, failing to make an arrest and violating conflict- of- interest standards, along with potentially criminal acts, such as faking timecards and larceny.
More minor offenses included inappropriate social media posts, violating paperwork requirements and administrative procedure infractions.
Mike Lawlor, a criminal law professor at the University of New Haven and a former chairman of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said the findings highlight how police discipline and accountability must be strengthened.
“The discipline handed out is not appropriate,” Lawlor said. “There is a lot of pressure to change the way they do this. A lot of this is governed by collective bargaining, which has to change.”
Milford Police Chief Keith Mello, a past president of the Connecticut Police
Chiefs Association, said most departments try to issue fair discipline and use it to improve officer performance.
“What the public may not realize is we are holding people accountable,” Mello said.
“It’s not realistic to say every time a cop does something wrong, they should be fired,” the chief said. “That’s not supportable. We struggle with making sure we hold people accountable; that discipline is fair.”
The Hearst investigation comes amid national debate and protest over police conduct, sparked in part by the murder last year of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted this spring on criminal charges that he killed Floyd by pinning him to the ground for nearly 10 minutes. Chauvin was sentenced Friday to 22.5 years in prison and also faces federal charges stemming from Floyd’s death.
For many police reform advocates, the debate boils down to the rules governing police behavior, including how officers are disciplined and the punishment issued for minor offenses and major misconduct.
“Internal discipline is only as good as the rules,” said Dan Barrett, legal director of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The cops write those rules,” Barrett said. “[ Those rules] may have nothing to do with the law or how we think they should behave.”
Lack of transparency
The data Hearst Connecticut obtained by sending identical records requests to local police departments is incomplete.
For example, some departments omitted punishments issued to officers or provided only investigation files that had been sustained, meaning investigators determined there was misconduct.
Many offered standard terms such as “code of conduct” or “performance of duties” to describe the allegation against an officer, which offers no information about what the person was accused of or whether it was a serious offense. Other departments provided heavily redacted documents.
Greenwich Police said it made redactions “due to legal and contractual reasons.” “If we were allowed to show all of the 50 cases, we would.”
Seven departments, including Bridgeport — the state’s largest city — have not provided any information since Hearst Connecticut began requesting data months ago, with some requests dating to last October. The departments technically did not refuse to send information and claim to be working on producing it.
Shelton also provided no information, but last year, according to media reports, the department fired three officers for allegedly lying about inappropriate photos and three more for failing to investigate a domestic incident.
Hamden’s town attorney cited privacy issues and an officer’s objection in denying further information on a case involving a former deputy chief accused of faking timesheets for off- duty work.
Some departments which initially provided information did not respond to requests for additional detail on specific cases. Few departments commented for this story.
Bree Spencer, senior manager of the policing program at the national Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said transparency is key when assessing whether a police department is properly disciplining officers.
“Ultimately, law enforcement agencies have been able to escape accountability, in part, due to poor data collection practices which obscure misconduct and use of force,” Spencer said.
“Transparency is necessary to change this paradigm,” Spencer added, noting the Leadership Conference is now developing a national database to track use of force misconduct.
Howard Friedman, a Boston civil rights lawyer and member of the National Police Accountability Project, said the cases examined by Hearst Connecticut appear to have mostly resulted in minor punishments.
“You can’t keep giving a reprimand,” Friedman noted, adding local police departments are often reluctant to get tough on their officers.
Friedman said several common factors work to reduce the willingness of departments to crack down on officers.
“It’s the unions and fear of lawsuits,” Friedman said. “But if they tolerate abuse, they are opening themselves up to liability. The most common claim would be that they allowed [ officers] to continue to do this.”
‘ I can’t breathe’
In 2018, Milford Police Officer Erek Robinson was arguing with a man brought to the booking room on an outstanding warrant. The lengthy conversation between the man and Robinson — from the cruiser to the police station — grew tense, including when the man, who is Black, called Robinson, who is also Black, the N- word, according to body camera footage and an investigative report obtained by Hearst Connecticut. At other points, Robinson made homophobic remarks and encouraged the man to hit him.
Robinson was searching the man in the booking room when a physical struggle began. During that struggle, Robinson told the man that “you gonna go to sleep [ expletive]” as he brought him to the ground and administered what internal investigators later determined to be an improper chokehold.
The man resisted and cried out “I can’t breathe, yo” and “stop [ expletive] doing this.”
The struggle ended quickly, and the man was soon brought to his feet appearing relatively unharmed.
The department decided against bringing criminal charges against Robinson, opting to handle the case inhouse.
He was suspended for three days
Police officers across the region have been caught engaging in a variety of misdeeds in recent years — ranging from being late for duty to improper use of force to breaking into cars. But superiors rarely handed down the most serious forms of punishment, a Hearst Connecticut Media Group investigation of hundreds of cases found.
without pay and lost his patrolman first- class status.
“We demoted him and gave him a suspension and took him off the road for training,” Chief Keith Mello said of the punishment. “He’s claiming he was justified, and we disagree.”
Robinson had been in trouble not long before. In 2015 and 2017, he received verbal reprimands for a motor vehicle accident and an unspecified violation of the department’s code of conduct.
The year after the use of force incident, Robinson received two more reprimands for unspecified misconduct. Records provided to Hearst Connecticut do not provide additional details on the other misconduct cases.
“He is under increased supervision, and he better have gotten the message,” Mello noted.
Robinson did not respond to a request for comment left with the department.
It was unclear what, if any, charges the man faced from his arrest that day. Efforts to reach the man were unsuccessful.
Range of punishments
The Milford case is just one of hundreds of examples of discipline issued by police departments in the region, according to records reviewed by Hearst Connecticut.
In 2019, a Branford officer fired his gun while picking it up in the locker room. No one was injured and he was ordered to participate in remedial training
Norwalk police in 2018 suspended an officer for one day for turning in a fictitious injury or illness report.
Fairfield police in 2015 ordered counseling for one officer stemming from a civil rights violation after the officer peered through a home’s garage window to locate a vehicle, “a potential technical violation” of the resident’s right against unreasonable search and seizure. In 2017, an officer was suspended for harassment/ stalking involving phone calls to a female employee.
“Our department is committed to upholding the highest standards of policing, which includes taking all allegations of misconduct seriously, and we will continue to maintain the utmost professionalism and accountability within our ranks,” said Fairfield Chief Robert Kalamaras.
In Torrington, one officer was suspended for a total of 44 days between 2016 and 2019 for violating rules regarding standards of conduct, officer conduct and performance of duties. The department did not provide additional details. Torrington Chief William Baldwin did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2019, New Haven police suspended an officer for six months as part of an internal settlement with the officer over a lengthy list of misconduct from three separate internal investigations. The extensive investigations into his actions began after his arrest for domestic violence and led investigators to conclude the officer also failed to complete dozens of incident reports and arrest a suspect for domestic violence arrest when it was warranted.
Overall, among the hundreds of cases reviewed by Hearst Connecticut, the records provided showed departments collectively fired five officers for misconduct. The reasons for termination included making false statements and failure to properly investigate a complaint.
The records showed another 34 officers retired or resigned while investigations were underway, a move that effectively ends the probe and results in no final determination.
Stamford in 2019 began investigations against four officers accused of alleged payroll theft. The officers retired before the probes concluded and were later arrested and charged with larceny related to off- duty work. The cases are pending in the state Superior Court in Stamford.
A Danbury officer in 2015 resigned after an investigation began in response to his arrest for larceny in New York state for allegedly breaking into vehicles.
Other departments that have not produced requested documents include: East Haven, Middletown, North Haven, Seymour, Shelton and West Haven. None of the departments refused to provide the requested documents, but have said they’re continuing to process the requests.
Writing the rules
For the most part, the rules local cops operate under, aside from federal civil rights dictates and state mandates, are determined by the police themselves. They come in the form of union contracts and internal rules of conduct and are generally similar from department to department.
According to the national ACLU, half of the states in the U. S. have laws that give police special protections from investigation, though Connecticut is not among them; and 84 percent of police union contracts offer at least one barrier to disciplining an officer.
Some police contracts in Connecticut allow departments to destroy disciplinary records after only a few years, making it difficult even for internal investigators to determine a pattern of misconduct. Other provisions limit how officers can be questioned and bar disciplining an officer based on an anonymous complaint or even investigating anonymous complaints.
In 2020, the Connecticut Legislature passed a sweeping Police Accountability Act that created a new watchdog for police misconduct, banned chokeholds and limited the ability of state police to withhold certain disciplinary records.
The bill also chipped away at “qualified immunity,” a controversial provision in state law that protects officers from lawsuits over their actions. Under the new law, officers can only claim immunity if the officer “had an objectively good faith belief that such officer’s conduct did not violate the law.”
A court can rule against an officer if they committed a “malicious, wanton, or willful act” and the officer would have to reimburse the government for his legal defense.
Mark Zuccerella, a spokesman for the Greenwich Police Department, said multiple factors go into establishing police rules.
“The Greenwich Police Department disciplinary process is established in policy and governed by state law, court decisions, collective bargaining agreements and best practices in model policies from professional organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police,” Zuccerella said. “We stand behind our system of internal affairs and discipline and recognize that a carefully designed and administered system increases community trust in the Department, improves employee morale, identifies problems and remedies in the organization and enhances our ability to deliver superior police services.”
Internal investigations are not public proceedings and are conducted behind closed doors by other officers within the department. The results are rarely disclosed to the public and are not posted on town or city websites.
In communities with a police commission or civilian review board, discipline levied against an officer — usually terminations and longer suspensions — is publicly approved by the commission. In other communities, the mayor or first selectman makes the call, usually with no public announcement.
State law can be used to block release of police personnel files and the discipline they receive. Section 1- 214 of state statute allows a department to withhold documents if the department concludes their release constitutes an unfair invasion of privacy and the officer involved objects to that release.
Police departments are also mindful of state labor boards. In Connecticut, the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration can reverse discipline, restore a demotion, or reinstate fired officers.
A Hearst Connecticut review in 2019 uncovered seven officers fired by Connecticut municipalities over the prior two years were reinstated by the mediation board.
Mello conceded that the level of discipline is often affected by whether the department believes the punishment would be overturned by the mediation board. Board officials did not respond to a request for comment.
“You look at other rulings,” Mello said. “[ The punishment] is what can be supported at the labor board. You look at what could be sustained.”
He said discipline is meant to be progressive, meaning the severity amps up when an officer is a repeat offender.
Barrett, the ACLU legal director, said fear of being overturned hinders police punishment and wondered if police departments hand out strict discipline while knowing the punishment will likely be overturned.
“They do this all the time; like they never read the collective bargaining agreement,” Barrett said, referring to violations of contract terms that lead to discipline being overturned.
Friedman, the Boston civil rights lawyer, said one solution is opening police records so the public can easily assess discipline and allegations.
Otherwise, “[ Officers] don’t think the law applies to them because it doesn’t.”
Through in- house proceedings shielded from public scrutiny, departments often resorted to discipline that experts say is more of a slap on the wrist and insufficient to halt or reduce future misconduct.