CONNECTICUT, USA — The Connecticut State Police Union is asking a federal judge to declare parts of the state’s new police accountability law unconstitutional.
The union says sections pertaining to the public disclosure of troopers’ personnel files and internal affairs investigations violates records law exemptions in the troopers' contract. The union announced the move Wednesday, saying it filed for an injunction that would force state officials to comply with the contract.
Attorney General William Tong's office says it is reviewing the filing and will respond in court. Also Wednesday, troopers began voting on whether to express no confidence in Gov. Ned Lamont and state police leaders.
On July 31, Governor Lamont signed into law House Bill 6004, An Act Concerning Police Accountability. The bill enforces and mandates implicit bias training, a requirement for body and dash cams, will prohibit the use of military equipment, ban chokeholds, require officer bystander intervention, and mandate mental health assessments.
The bill itself stirred controversy particularly from law enforcement, with many saying the bill was rushed and strips away too much protection for police officers.
The ACLU supports the bill, saying citizens in a democracy should know what the government is doing and discussed the consequences of shielding police disciplinary records.
ACLU of Connecticut executive director David McGuire released a statement Wednesday:
“In a democracy, the people have a right to know what our government is doing in our names, yet the state police union’s lawsuit ultimately seeks to hide police disciplinary records from the public. Government transparency is particularly critical when the government employees in question carry guns and handcuffs, and it is doubly important when the records in question are about violence or other misconduct on the part of those employees. Police disciplinary and internal affairs records are essential tools not only for assessing individual officers’ histories, but for determining a police agency’s patterns of behavior when confronted with cases of police violence or other misconduct. We’ve seen the consequences of shielding police disciplinary records from the public with New York’s disastrous and recently-repealed 50-a law, and Connecticut’s legislature did the right thing when it passed this provision to prevent our state from going further down a similar path. The legislature has the authority and responsibility to protect the public’s right to access police disciplinary records.”
Read the complaint below:
