Accountability process demands clarity

It’s never been easy to be a cop. The whiplash demands of the job have always required mettle. But the public pays the salaries, and deserves transparency.

When someone breaks the rules, they should know what to expect.

That goes for those who break the law, as well as for those who are assigned to uphold it. But three years into Connecticut’s police accountability law, the lines remain blurry.

The law has been under fire in some quarters ever since it was first suggested in 2020. Three years is enough time for its detractors to accept it’s not going away.

These same critics, and police themselves, should lead the call for more clarity on how the law functions. An accused officer should expect the same level playing field as any suspect who faces judgment in a courtroom.

Some police chiefs say it is still evolving, that it is an “infancy” stage. They need to help it mature more quickly than it has.

State Sen. Gary Winfield, DNew Haven, who helped craft the law, has taken the right approach. The goal can’t be to target officers and get rid of them, but to have a fair process in place on the occasions when accusations arise. Police are human. Misjudgments will always happen. There must be reliable procedures to address them.

A cop who faces decommission has the right to know if their career in law enforcement is over. The public also deserves to understand if it is possible for a decommissioned officer to eventually land at another department.

Prior to the law, which arose in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hand of police, it was not uncommon for an officer to be released from one department, only to later patrol the streets in another town.

Norwalk has been the poster child for the process, as four officers have been decertified in the last three years. A range of accusations led to the officers losing their badges, from drinking alcohol on the job, ignoring calls, forgery or using the job to pick up women. Thanks to social media, the court of public opinion will matter as well, as they remain forever branded by the incidents.

Meanwhile, no Connecticut State Police have been decertified since 2019, even though 19 have been arrested. That could change soon, with three troopers now under review. Former Connecticut State Police Sgt. John McDonald has already pleaded guilty in a DUI crash that injured two. He resigned in the face of two internal affairs probes in claims he misused the agencies’ time management system.

It’s never been easy to be a cop. The whiplash demands of the job have always required mettle. But the public pays the salaries, and deserves transparency. The process should be clear, which it wasn’t when terminated officers were able to get their jobs back through a labor board procedure.

Nor should any indiscretion result in an officer immediately being stripped of the badge.

“What constitutes a violation of the public’s trust is going to be better defined as we move forward,” said Cheshire Police Chief Neil Dryfe, who is a member of the Post Officer Standards and Training Council, which certifies and decertifies officers.

The council needn’t look to the future to shape definitions of public trust. The history of law enforcement is deep in each of our towns. And the public knows when trust has been broken.