Police Accountability Resolution Fails

After two hours of public disapproval, the Hamden Legislative Council Monday night unanimously rejected a resolution about police accountability, deferring to criticisms that it lacked teeth and vowing to return in two weeks with a stronger version.

The council has been drafting the resolution since a public hearing on April 22, at which area residents and activists demanded an independent investigation into the officer-involved shooting on April 16 in which Hamden Cop Devin Eaton and Yale Cop Terrance Pollock shot at an unarmed couple in Newhallville. 

The resolution that came before the council was the last of eight drafts. According to multiple council members, it had been significantly watered down with weaker language and fewer recommendations.

Activists had hoped to see a resolution that would begin a full, independent investigation. The resolution did not call for one. Rather, it stated that ​“the president of the Legislative Council is authorized to select and retain a qualified, independent expert to review and report to the Council.”

“At this point this resolution has very little,” District 5 Rep. Justin Farmer told the Independent.

“I read the resolution and I saw that it’s really just a lot of halfway measures,” said Spring Glen Church Reverend Jack Perkins Davidson. ​“And what we need is not halfway measures but life-saving measures.”

Many of those who testified before the council said that the resolution’s language was too weak. New Haven-based activist Kerry Ellington highlighted the first ​“whereas” clause as an example. The clause reads: ​“Whereas, on April 16, 2019, Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon were in a car at the corner of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street in New Haven when shots were fired.”

“You open up a statement saying that shots were fired,” said Ellington. ​“Well, who fired those shots?”

“We’re asking you to go back and remove the passive language from your draft,” she said, restating the demands she had made at the April 22 hearing. ​“This is a farce and it is a disgrace to the intelligence of this community.”

On April 26, Hamden Mayor Curt Leng announced that the police department’s Ethics and Integrity Unit had launched an internal investigation ​“in conjunction with an outside, expert professional with experience in use-of-force allegations and best police practices.” Monday’s resolution commended that investigation, and would have added its own expert to bear witness to the investigation and report to the council on its thoroughness and integrity.

For many members of the crowd, that was not enough.

“When we say independent, we mean independent of Hamden’s internal affairs department,” Rhonda Caldwell told the council. ​“Until you act, the streets of Hamden are not safe for people of color.”

The council does have the power to recommend an independent investigation, said Attorney Steven Mednick, who has acted as a legal counsel to the Legislative Council. However, he said, it might pose legal challenges that would render that investigation powerless.

“It wouldn’t have any impact under the agreement,” Mednick told the council, referring to the collective bargaining agreement with the town’s police union. ​“If you were to hire somebody there might be a question raised about the validity of the process. It might be raised by the party that has collective bargaining rights as human rights under the process. It might subject the … town to potential liability.”

“This council should through this resolution do everything that’s humanly possible to do to accomplish the objectives that are broadly considered by the people who have testified at these two hearings,” Mednick continued. ​“All I’m trying to say is we have to be honest about it. We can’t tell somebody that we’re going to be able to subpoena somebody if we don’t have the authority to subpoena somebody.”

The resolution also included a provision that would urge the Hamden delegation in the General Assembly to advocate for legislation ​“expressly granting the authority to establish civilian review boards (CRBs) and to provide CRBs and local legislative bodies with the authority to issue subpoenas.”

Many of those who spoke at the public hearing questioned why the resolution called for state legislation rather than just calling for the establishment of a CRB. New Haven just created a CRB, they said. So why can’t Hamden?

Mednick, who helped write the CRB provisions in New Haven, explained that in order for a CRB to have any real power, there has to be a resolution from the state expressly stating that a town is permitted to create one, and that it has subpoena power. New Haven created its CRB though a charter amendment. Under the Home Rule Act, he said, municipalities are allowed to create boards and commissions, which changes the charter. In 1899, the General Assembly passed an act that allowed New Haven’s Board of Alders, and certain specific boards in the city, subpoena power. That, he said, meant that when New Haven went to create its CRB, it could argue that because of that 1899 act, the CRB has subpoena power, though Mednick said he is not sure whether that act does in fact allow the CRB subpoena power.

No such act from the General Assembly pertains to Hamden, however. Therefore, if the town were to create a CRB by charter revision, said Mednick, it could not have subpoena power. State legislating expressly granting municipalities the ability to create CRBs with subpoena power, he said, would allow Hamden to create a CRB that would actually have power.

The council, along with Mednick and other lawyers, will now have to go back to the drawing board to create a stronger resolution. If all goes as planned, it will appear before the council on May 20.

Below is the full resolution.