Outside Help Sought In Doc-Destruction Probe; Released Video Missing Key Scene

The town of Hamden is calling in an outside organization that will investigate why police sought to destroy 100 volumes of public records while a freedom-of-information request for them was pending.

Mayor Lauren Garrett’s administration is working with the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency, which is part of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, to hire an outside attorney who she said will examine why police officers shredded internal affairs documents that overlapped with records requested by a police commissioner. 

“I think investigating the destruction of documents is important for public confidence in determining what policies and/or procedures failed and then making corrections to those policies,” Garrett said Wednesday. She said she was unsure what the cost of such an investigation would amount to.

Digital versions of those documents do exist. Dunn has yet to receive copies of most of those requested documents — the town is still reviewing them. 

One use-of-force report and accompanying video raise questions about why police drew weapons on a woman involved in a car crash and failed to activate their body cameras at a key moment. To Police Commissioner Daniel Dunn, it illustrates why this larger issue about document destruction matters. (Read more about the incident in question further down in this article.)

The document saga began in late February, when Commissioner Dunn filed a Connecticut Freedom of Information Act request to review six years’ worth of civilian complaints and use of force reports. Hamden and its police department responded by waiting months to start sending over partial copies of the records — and then signed off on the destruction of 100 unsubstantiated internal affairs reports by the Police Department even though Dunn’s request was still pending.

Mayor Garrett, who signed off on the document destruction request, said she had not realized that the documents slated for destruction overlapped with records Dunn had sought. The issue was caught before digital versions were lost. Only paper copies were shredded.

The state FOI Commission is now also looking into the matter. The questions before them concern whether the department intentionally worked to keep Dunn from observing all of the reports. Those inquiries include:

• Why the police department first failed to promptly provide the records (the town has still not provided all of the available reports).

• Why it then sought to destroy documents Dunn had specifically requested.

• Why it put in the request of disposition a week after Dunn made the request, which doesn’t line up with the timing of past disposition histories.

What's At Stake

“We basically just want to make sure that we have an outside investigator giving an objective report and showing the timeline of everything that took place,” mayoral Chief of Staff Sean Grace told the Independent. ​“If the result of that investigation shows there are more questions to be answered, then it’ll be time to go from there.” 

The town placed a moratorium on the destruction of all documents in early May while officials dealt with the shredding incident.

“All municipalities lawfully destroy records — but we need to figure out what policies can be put in place going forward to make sure that nothing like this happens again,” Grace said, regarding whether and when the town might overturn that suspension.

Frank LaDore, who serves on the police commission with Dunn, expressed skepticism about Dunn’s intent rather than the police’s when news of the shredding broke. ​“What is the reason for requesting all this information?” he asked at the time of the other commissioners.​“Are they looking for something specific? What are they gonna do with it?”

“It’s about practice. It’s about policy. It’s about administration providing proper oversight,” Dunn said. ​“I think we need to focus more on building a culture that’s self critical rather than one that focuses more on managing perception.”

Guns Pulled; Cameras Turned Off

To date, Dunn has received 28 civilian complaints and 114 use of force reports, the latter of which are dated only from 2016 and 2020. The town attorney is reportedly still in the process of redacting sensitive information from the reports before sending them to Dunn.

One available report that was released describing an incident that took place in 2020 caught Dunn’s attention.

It involves officers pulling guns on a woman involved in a car crash. Hamden police failed to activate their body cameras until after that part of the incident; the only available footage begins after that.

On Aug. 4 of that year, Hamden police officers were dispatched to Newhallville to investigate multiple reports of gunshots taking place in the area. Neighbors who called the police said that a red sedan was involved in the gunfire.

Later that night, officers were informed of a car crash that had taken place somewhere on Whitney Avenue and Augur or Eli Street. It involved a red vehicle that fit the description offered by witnesses. 

“If it’s a red sedan, use caution,” officers were instructed, according to radio footage.

Use of force reports show that three officers pulled out and pointed their firearms in the direction of the car upon arriving at the scene — but no body cam footage was provided to Dunn to illustrate the officers’ actions.

One officer reported an ​“unsuccessful activation attempt.”

The other two wrote in the reports that they did have visual evidence of what happened.

Acting Chief Tim Wydra and town officials told the Independent Wednesday that the officers had failed to turn on their cameras out of fear for their lives.

What the cameras do show is officers helping a Black woman out of her car, whose front was smashed next to a telephone pole. ​“Don’t hurt me,” she pleads. Wydra said that her car had T‑boned a police cruiser. 

The woman sobs as police officers take her out of the damaged car and try to deescalate the situation, saying, ​“Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit,” and ​“I’m not gonna hurt you, relax, relax, relax.” Cameras show countless cop cars filling the street around the accident.

“It’s not related. It’s definitely not related,” an officer says concerning the car crash and the shootings.

In a recording of a phone call between a witness and a police dispatcher, yelling and swearing can be heard in the background.

“Who’s cursing in the background?” the dispatcher inquires.

“The cops. There’s like six cops here,” a man who identified himself as Eugene replies.

The dispatcher asks if Eugene is OK.

“Yeah, I’m good — I just ran out because there was a fucking car crash. I heard the cops. I ran because I heard the cops say something like, ​‘Crossfire, crossfire,’ so I fucking ran and began to duck.”

The Independent identified the woman involved in the incident; she did not respond to requests for comment. There is no available record that she filed a formal complaint — though Dunn has yet to receive all of the civilian complaints made over the last six years.

“Reviewed all reports and body camera footage and determined the force used was justified and reasonable under the circumstances,” reporting supervisor Sgt. Jason Venditto wrote on the use of force reports. No body camera footage showing the officers’ armed encounter with the driver is ostensibly available.

Acting Chief Wydra, who was a lieutenant at the time, signed off on the report to confirm that a ​“proper and complete investigation was conducted.”

Wydra defended that sentiment on Wednesday when the Independent reached out to hear his stance on the case.

“She collided with a police car and the car matched a description of a shooter fleeing the scene,” he said. ​“As officers arrived at the accident scene, they quickly believed that that car was the one that left the scene of the shooting. Three of them drew their weapons out of fear of their own safety,” he recalled.

The one legitimate exemption for not activating a body camera, he said, is when doing so could jeopardize officers’ own ability to protect themselves in that moment.

He complimented the officers for producing ​“complete and articulate” use of force reports that described what had taken place despite the fact that visual footage was not available to show the officers drawing their guns.

“We had our own use of force forms for several years before it was required by the state,” he asserted. The department offered proper oversight of the incident, he argued, by having two supervisory officers sign off on each officers’ report.

But, he added, ​“having numerous layers of oversight,” as Dunn suggested, ​“is no problem.”

Click here to watch a video of the incident.

The incident took place one year after the shooting of Stephanie Washington. In that case, Hamden Cop Devin Eaton severely injured Washington while pursuing a red car driven by Paul Witherspoon and Washington. Eaton broke procedure while chasing the car because it matched a description provided by a convenience store manager who falsely reported that Witherspoon had committed an armed robbery that night. (He had allegedly threatened a newspaper delivery store owner, who falsely reported seeing a weapon.)

Read more about that here — Eaton avoided potential time behind bars last week by agreeing to never serve as a police officer or security agent again.

Dunn said that the 2020 case ​“raised questions for me because the body cams weren’t activated and firearms were pointed at an innocent person.” 

“I think it would be good to review cases like this to prevent innocent people from being shot again. And, I’m sure it’s a very frightening experience to have police pull guns on you,” he said.

“When an incident happens what can we learn from it? Did we do everything right? And it’s unclear what was learned in this case especially or what was learned in the Eaton case,” Dunn asserted.

“The question that keeps me up at night is are we doing everything we can to make sure innocent people don’t get shot at again. And the answer is no, if we’re being honest. At every level. The Police Commission has to take some responsibility for that as well.”