By Dave Collins
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Twenty-five police officers in Connecticut have been singled out as stopping minority drivers at significantly higher rates than their peers, according to a new report commissioned by the state government and described by its authors as the most comprehensive of its kind.
The analysis, conducted by researchers at Central Connecticut State University and released Thursday, doesn’t identify the 25 officers. Local police chiefs contacted by The Associated Press would not name the officers, either, saying it would be unfair to do so based on what they called flawed data.
“It is important that these results be viewed as the starting point of a dialogue and not as conclusive evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the officer,” the report says.
Nearly half the 25 officers identified in the report worked for two police departments. Eight of them were in Hamden, a suburb of New Haven, and four were in Wethersfield, a suburb of Hartford.
Hamden officials didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. Wethersfield Police Chief James Cetran denied his officers racially profiled drivers and called the report misleading. He said it didn’t take into account people who often drive into his town from neighboring Hartford, which has a much higher percentage of minority residents.
The analysis examined about 586,000 traffic stops made by officers in 92 municipal departments and state troopers from Oct. 1, 2014, through Sept. 30, 2015.
Statewide, 14 percent of all traffic stops by police involved black drivers, when black people of driving age comprise 9 percent of the state’s population. Nearly 13 percent of traffic
stops involved Hispanic drivers, when Hispanics of driving age comprise 12 percent of Connecticut residents. Those rates were about the same as in the traffic stop report last year, the first time Central Connecticut State University performed the analysis under the state’s anti-racial profiling law.
But when researchers reviewed stops made during daylight hours, when they said officers could see the race and ethnicity of drivers, Hispanics were nearly 14 percent more likely to be pulled over and blacks were about 7 percent more likely to be stopped than they were at night.
David McGuire, legislative and policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, said the report does confirm that “racial biases are still driving some traffic stops in Connecticut.” But state officials said the report shows the vast majority of police departments had no major racial disparities in traffic stops.
The report’s authors say it is the most comprehensive statewide examination of police traffic stop data among the more than two dozen states that collect such information. All police officers in Connecticut are required to fill out forms containing information about each traffic stop under the state law.
For the first time, the report also analyzed traffic stops by individual officers.
Researchers first looked at 935 officers in nine municipal departments and two state police troops that were identified as having racial disparities in the previous year’s report. They narrowed the list to 370 officers after limiting the sample to those who made 50 or more traffic stops. Of the 370, 25 officers were found to have been significantly more likely to stop minority motorists, when compared with fellow officers in their department, the report said.
In Wethersfield, about 27 percent of town officers’ traffic stops involved Hispanics, when only 7 percent of town residents are Hispanic and of driving age. Cetran, the police chief, said the figures do not account for a large number of Hispanics from Hartford’s neighboring South End, which has a larger percentage of Hispanic residents, who drive to shop in Wethersfield.
Cetran said that when two ZIP code areas in nearby Hartford neighborhoods are added to the Wethersfield data, more than 50 percent of people are Hispanic and of driving age.
“They’re not racially profiling. They’re really not. They’re just doing their jobs,” he said of his officers.
“I really feel we’re being persecuted unfairly,” Cetran said. “Until they get the ... information correct, they’re giving out information that is creating problems between the community and the police that aren’t there.”
Michael Lawlor, state undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, said the new report shows that data from the vast majority of police departments show no disparities.
”It doesn’t show any widespread bias,” he said. “It’s not a guilty/not guilty analysis. It’s, here are the numbers ... and let policymakers and managers work with it.”
Analysts also singled out five municipal departments and one state police troop that showed a “statistically significant racial or ethnic disparity that may indicate the presence of racial and ethnic bias.” Those agencies include Bloomfield, New Milford, Norwalk, West Hartford, Wethersfield and state police Troop H, which covers the Hartford area.
With the exception of Troop H, none of those agencies made the same list in last year’s report. Six other agencies were identified in this year’s report as having lesser signs of racial and ethnic disparities.
McGuire, of the ACLU, said, “We encourage departments with disproportionate minority traffic stop rates and patterns of disparities in minority traffic stops among specific officers to take a hard look at the data, examine their training practices and take meaningful steps toward reform.”
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