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| Lamont and police accountability law |
The ceremonial signing of Connecticut’s new police reform
law and the consequent messaging by Governor Ned Lamont, some may have
discovered, was dizzyingly confusing. Nearly everything touched by
Lamont, sooner or later, becomes fuzzy on its edges.
“Lamont
signs police reforms, but tells cops, ‘You’re my heroes’” reads the headline on one publication.
The “but” in that headline is meant to caution the reader –
confusion ahead. If the reforms were necessary, police across the state could
not be heroes, because the reforms, as we’ve been told countless times by the
reformers, are intended to change the unwonted, non-heroic behaviors of police
officers. And, since the new law is a state law that
applies to all police in Connecticut, not merely a handful of police officers
who stray from right-behavior, we must suppose that all officers in
Connecticut, in the absence of necessary reforms, show a tendency to slide into
unheroic behavior bordering on Jim-Crowism.
State Senator Gary Winfield, who both co-wrote and whipped
the reforms through the Democrat dominated General Assembly, has described the
intent of the new law without a hint of ambiguity. “Every tool that we
have thrown at this system,” Winfield told his colleagues in the State Senate,
“the system has continued to maintain itself. And by that I mean when
people, particularly Black (sic) people, seek justice when aggrieved by police
officers, they have a hard time finding it… We can have all these hypotheticals
and all of the stuff you want to talk about. I’ve heard it all,” Winfield said.
“But there’s no justice for those people. And that means no justice for me.” Winfield
is African American. “And if there’s no justice for me, there’s no justice for
those people. And what you call justice is injustice.”
The purpose of the Winfield bill is to eliminate residual
effects of slavery among Connecticut’s police, chiefly by eliminating partial
immunity and allowing those nursing social grievances, like Winfield, their day
and week and month and year and decade in court.
The Winfield bill, despite supporters' insistence that the
bill will not change liability among police officers, will open a new door to
expensive suits brought by the aggrieved -- anyone, African American or not --
who have suffered indignities through perceived aggressive policing. Suits need
not be successful to be effective deterrents to actions deemed unjust. The
prospect of running the judicial knout may convince – indeed, already
has convinced -- seasoned police officers and possible
police recruits to think twice before joining an organization that may
leave them for years at the mercy of a tortuous, asset-draining legal process.
A day after Lamont signed into law the new police reforms,
some of which are efficacious, a piece appearing in a Hartford paper, “Officers
weigh future after new law,” found numerous officers looking for the
exit signs.
Bill Young, a Manchester police officer for 24 years, said
“If I could have left yesterday, I would have left yesterday,” even though the
bill will not take effect until a year after passage.
Outgoing Speaker of the State House Joe Arsimowicz unreeled
a spiel designed to assure new police recruits and old police hands that the
bill contained a codicil that would prevent unjust repercussions. In addition
to protecting citizens “constitutional rights,” the bill eliminating partial
immunity would “also protect law enforcement officers… from personal liability
when acting in good faith as part of their job… Only the few who knowingly act
in a malicious and intentional way to violate somebody’s constitutional rights
continue [under the legislation] to be impacted.” Arsimowicz warned officers
not to be seduced by “a lot of information that is being, put out” by, among
others, Winfield, who had characterized his bill as a prophylactic that would
ameliorate perceived injustices through civil suits holding municipalities and
police officers legally responsible for behaviors deemed unjust by aggrieved
parties.
Police officers, targets of the legislation, were not buying
the sales pitch for multiple reasons. First, the bill was hastily ushered
through the state House by legislators who, following passage, adjourned sine
die so that the mischievous partial immunity provision could not be
adjusted by the State Senate and returned to the House for reaffirmation before
being sent on to Lamont for his signature. Second, even the abbreviated
discussion on the bill in both chambers had convinced the bill’s targets of the
measure’s intent – to adjust perceived unjust behavior on the part of police
through the prospect of punishing and expensive suits and complex process action.
Third, those voting affirmatively on the abolition of partial immunity had not
properly weighed the abbreviated testimony against the provision. Fourth,
politics, the worm in the process apple, had been apparent when the bill had
been first introduced in the House. Other than preventing robust police actions
upholding past laws written by the legislature – every one of which might more
easily have been repealed by lawmakers – the House bill appeared to have
been designed by its authors to garner votes from people nursing
grievances they had suffered in the past from officers the great majority of
whom were operating from within a law enforcement box created by lawmakers.
After appending his signature to the bill, Lamont sought to
reassure jittery police officers. “Look, it’s important to continue to build
bridges,” the governor said. “There is a lot of misinformation about this bill
and virtually everything that happens in this state.” The purpose of the
post-signing press conference, Lamont said, was “to show both confidence in the
legislation and to give police confidence that ‘we’ve got their back.’”
Police across the state have yet to be convinced that a
target has not been painted on their backs so that politicians who “have their
backs” will use them for campaign target practice.
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