HARTFORD, Conn. — Over the last nearly 10 years, hundreds of Connecticut State Police Troopers may have falsified more than 25,000 traffic tickets. Making it appear that more white drivers were being pulled over than drivers of other ethnicities.
That’s according to an audit by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project.
"It’s troubling, it’s concerning. It flies right in the face of public trust in the system of policing for the state police of Connecticut," said Claudine Constant, public policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Connecticut.
"Based on the analysis we have a high level of confidence that both false and inaccurate records were submitted into the profiling database," said Ken Barone, project manager for the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project.
He spoke to a room of dozens of people at UConn Hartford Wednesday evening explaining how his team came to the conclusion by comparing state police data to data from the judicial system.
"25,966 records that we cannot match," Barone said.
He said they found instances of over-reporting traffic stops and underreporting.
"Stops where there was a likelihood that they didn’t occur and then the other was stops that did occur but weren’t properly reported to the profiling system," Barone said.
The Connecticut chapter of the NAACP said it's concerned about the findings.
"It’s so broad, and so pervasive that and it runs so deep. It’s very startling," said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the CT NAACP.
Gov. Ned Lamont said the state will be bringing in an outside firm to look into what happened.
"Mainly not to look at guilt, but to look at how this happened how we can make sure this doesn’t happen," he said. "How much of this was intentional? If you’re intentional if you’re breaking the law you shouldn’t be a state policeman," Lamont said,
The chief state’s attorney will also be investigating further into this matter.
After the audit was first released state police said in part in a statement:
“The state police are deeply committed to ensuring the integrity of Connecticut’s racial profiling data and to maintaining public confidence in the essential public safety services our troopers provide each day."
However, some are now calling for more oversight and change.
"To make sure that not only do we hold individuals accountable but also prevent this from happening again," Esdaile said.
State lawmakers will be holding their own informational forum on the audit next week. That will be held Wednesday, July 26, at 10 a.m. at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
Gaby Molina is a reporter and anchor at FOX61 News. She can be reached at mmolina@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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