A scandal that rocked the Connecticut State Police when it broke last month has hit the headlines again after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was taking over the case. An audit by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project in which more than 800,000 infractions issued between 2014 and 201 were reviewed revealed that troopers exaggerated stops to the tune of 26,000 tickets.
Most of the fake tickets were issued to white motorists, and the audit also discovered that 500 troopers failed to report 16,000 real traffic stops involving Black and Hispanic drivers, two factors that skewed the ratio of white to non-white drivers being stopped. In one extreme case an unidentified trooper in Bridgeport issued 1,350 bogus tickets, accounting for a staggering 83 percent of their overall infraction record.
The audit carried out by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project was initially handed over to the state attorney’s office and the Connecticut State Police. But Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin was told by the DOJ last Thursday to suspend his investigation because the DOJ was now carrying out its own review.
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“I agreed with that decision,” Griffin told WTNH-TV. “I think DOJ brings the tools and the resources necessary to conduct this investigation, on the one hand,” he said. “On the other, I think that the investigation will be thorough. I think that it will be independent.”
The news will be welcomed by civil rights groups, who AP reports were concerned about the objectivity of Griffin’s investigation due to his office’s work with the police. And the DOJ’s probe isn’t the only one focused on the fake tickets case. While the state attorney’s office might had to park its investigation due to federal pressure, another entirely independent investigation ordered by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is still running.