Well, this is weird. A few years ago police investigators found out that four state troopers in Connecticut had been entering fake traffic tickets into an internal police database:
Four troopers had collectively entered at least 636 fake tickets into the state police computer system over a nine-month stretch to make it appear they were more productive than they actually were. The troopers, who worked for Troop E based in Montville, did so for their own personal benefit — to curry favor and perks from supervisors, internal investigators concluded.
Huh. But it gets weirder. A recent audit discovered that upwards of a quarter of the the entire Connecticut state police had been doing the same thing over the past decade. But why? Surely not for personal perks if they were all doing it. The answer, it turns out, is that police in Connecticut are required to report every traffic stop they make to the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, a state-funded group that analyzes police citations to determine racial profiling trends:
The project, which is contracted by the state to analyze the records, including race, ethnicity, gender, age and other demographic information about drivers stopped, to identify patterns of potential racial profiling by officers.
....The audit found with “a high degree of confidence” troopers submitted at least 25,966 tickets to the racial profiling database that did not match records in the judicial database between 2014 and 2021.
....Overreported records were more likely to be reported as white drivers and less likely to be reported as Black or Hispanic drivers, the auditors found.
There had been patterns reported previously that state police were more likely to stop Hispanic motorists during daylight hours and more likely to search drivers of color. Troopers probably found these allegations annoying and wanted investigators to get off their back, so—apparently—they cooked up a scheme to issue fake tickets that had the overall effect of boosting the number of white drivers in the database. This made it look less likely that troopers were engaged in racial profiling. The whole thing went on for years and involved nearly a thousand state police.
Or maybe it was all just a big mistake. Governor Ned Lamont urged caution:
“I wouldn't jump to conclusions,” said Lamont, who became governor in 2019, a few months after state police found four troopers had been fabricating tickets. "There's no indication that was purposeful. A lot of it may have been inadvertent. We've got to look into that.”
Perhaps. I guess anything is possible.
Once again, we learn that whenever performance suddenly improves dramatically, check for cheating.
Eternal wisdom.
If the police are lying, what else have they been lying about?
That's how I think most African-Americans and Non-white Hispanics are viewing this issue. I think the governor will be unwilling to look too deeply, as a result.
If lying is systemic, think of all the convictions based solely on police as witnesses, potentially being overturned.
State troopers.
“I wouldn't jump to conclusions,” said Lamont
Well, OK. It's good to have all the facts. But this sure looks bad.
ACAB, episode #3,564,254
25% of Conn. policemen were entering false statements into a database to coverup for racism!? IOW there were willing to have a written record of their actions? This is alarming in so many ways including their court testimony is forever slanted. Also you imagine there must be an equal number who were to smart to create the record. I mean just Wow.
It must be tough working as a state trooper in a state like CT where just about any white driver you stop could have friends or relatives in high places and/or be rich enough to afford a lawyer who will make your life miserable if you break his tail light as you walk up to the car or decide to tell him to get out of the car and lay on the ground. So you only do it to non white people and THEN they get you for profiling. Sheesh, who are you supposed to give summonses to and arrest? Amirite?
IOW there were willing to have a written record of their actions?
Sure why not? Police are almost never convicted of anything, even when there are witnesses, video footage and their fellow cops testify against them. Without accountability, impunity flourishes.
There is no huge discrepancy in white vs non-white matched citations to correct, although the rate is somewhat higher for blacks than population, and the matched citations don't do much to change the rate (although the scales for matched and unmatched are not really explained and we don't know the numbers of matched tickets). My guess is that the fake tickets were just names chosen at random without looking at race.
What this story lacks is the actual numbers. For the time period of 2014-2020, the total number of traffic stops is 1.9 million and the number of tickets (infractions) is 1.2 million. Top 4 reason for stops, speeding, registration, defective lights, and cell phone. Everyone knows that any defective lights ticket is a racial stop. And state troopers somehow manage to not enforce any violation on any Interstate.
http://trafficstops.ctdata.org/
So 25k in tickets out of 1.2 million don't match up to a separate count of tickets in another database presumably judicial.
Numeracy matters.
I guess the fixit ticket I got several years ago was an exception proving the rule?
Assuming that the “Matched” tickets represent actual traffic stops/tickets, it seems White motorists constitute ~70% of those interactions, and Black motorists ~18%, Hispanics 18%…
I’m sure CT demographics skew highly caucasoid, but even so, these numbers don’t look absolutely crazy.
And if the numbers in the above comment are correct, only 2% of total tickets were fraudulent (the unmatched tickets total 25k, the matched tickets 1.2M)… You’re not going to move the racial averages much by slightly skewing the (2%) fraudulent tickets in a more ethnically palatable direction.
Seems like a dumb story.
Who among us hasn't accidentally forged a traffic ticket -- ?
Eve?
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On a totally unrelated subject, the fallout from a recent Supremes decision may have begun:
“ A Michigan hair salon owner announced on Facebook that she would not be providing services to transgender or queer people, reportedly writing that they should seek a grooming service for animals.”
Would mass extinction (per a Drum post today) be such a bad thing? I’m kinda sick
Of us.
You guys are missing the bigger story here. Aren’t we told that cops would be more effective with less paperwork?
Sounds like they have plenty of time to get all that pesky paperwork done!
I don't know if they still have this, but when I briefly lived in Fairfield County in the late 80s I soon noticed lots of expensive cars had these plastic gold shields with "Connecticut 100 Club" or some such written on them. Found it was a club of high-donors to the PBA, and essentially a speed-for-free card. So I'm not the least bit surprised about the news.
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