Connecticut State Police have incorrectly reported more than 25,000 traffic stop records in recent years.
An investigation into the department’s practices reveals police are pulling over people of color — but not reporting it.
The Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project began investigating the state police after a reporter at Hearst revealed inaccurate information from the department.
According to the project, state police officers falsified traffic stops that included white drivers and failed to report traffic stops with drivers of color.
Claudine Constant with the Connecticut ACLU said it’s hard to know for sure why they did that, but she has an idea.
“They are trying to cover up how much they actually are stopping drivers of color, and motorists of color, versus white folks,” Constant said. “And so to do that, you kind of skew the reporting to make it look like you're not actually racially profiling drivers in Connecticut when the data shows that that was likely happening.”
Constant said the state police need to be held accountable by an outside governing body and should not be policing themselves.
“Who knows where else this could be happening,” Constant said. “We expect officers to submit reports around the use of force, we expect officers to be honest about engagements with suspects that they are arresting.”
The state Legislature failed to pass a bill this session that would have eliminated secondary stops, like a broken headlight or expired registration.
Constant said laws like that would help.
“That's one very clear solution to cut back on the possibility of police committing these kinds of acts,” Constant said.
