Legislature to Consider Police Reforms.

The Hartford Courant provides a list of police reform proposals included in a report from a legislative task force on police accountability and transparency. There are 20 recommendations. The recommendation that seeks to eliminate “stops for low-level administrative and equipment offenses and consent searches of motor vehicles” is more consequential than it may sound.

Police often make stops when they see a light on a motor vehicle not functioning. From there, an officer, or more than one after a few minutes, may search the vehicle–sometimes claiming probable cause with the flimsiest excuse–and what started as a broken light stop escalates. The driver or a passenger may engage in a verbal exchange with the police officer and suddenly a malfunctioning signal light stop turns into a charge of interfering with a police officer.

The task force also recommends ensuring “each officer commits to 500 hours of community engagement activities within Connecticut’s major urban centers as prior to receiving initial officer certification.” A sign at a recent protest made a telling point. Some states-Connecticut is one of them-require more hours of training for a barber or hairdressing license than they do to become a police officer. In Connecticut, it’s 1,500 hours for hairdressing and barber licenses.

The Connecticut Police Academy trains about 90% of the state’s police recruits. Its program “is approximately 22 weeks long. Recruit officers reside at the Academy from 8 a.m. on Monday to 6 p.m. Friday each week. Recruits must successfully pass, with a grade of 70% or better, each of 17 different academic areas as well as successfully pass each of a series of different practical skill areas (currently 12). Additionally, recruits must complete a field and departmental training program consisting of a minimum of 400 additional hours.” That’s 1,280 hours, 220 fewer than needed to obtain a haircutting license. Another 500 hours for police officers seems like a sensible, overdue improvement.

The National Organization of Black Police Executives (NOBLE) participated in a 2017 report, National Consensus Policy and Discussion on the Use of Force. You can read it here. The first general provision: Use of physical force should be discontinued when resistance ceases or the incident is under control.

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