You are here
The Institutional Corruption Behind Police Abuse of Immigrants
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Robert Wechsler
It's not every day that a neighboring town makes the
front page of the New York Times. It's especially surprising when
the reason is, at heart, a local government ethics problem.
The town is East Haven, CT (most recently in the national news for a part of it being overrun by waves during Hurricane Irene), and the problem ostensibly involves the mistreatment of immigrants in town by certain police officials. That's the criminal point of view. But the real problem is loyalty. The police, and certain town officials, put their loyalty to each other ahead of their loyalty to the town's residents. Four police officers have been indicted, one of them the head of the police union, and it appears that the union and the mayor are solidly behind them.
It appears that even the police chief was involved in the coverup, by trying to get a priest moved to another parish, because he was trying to document the police officers' behavior.
Even worse, it appears that the police chief "barred members of East Haven’s police commission, a supervisory body that was trying to investigate the complaints, from entering the department without his permission." And according to the indictment, he "refused to provide the Police Commission with an arrest report involving [one of the officers], and dismissed the Police Commission’s request to investigate [another of the officers'] alleged misconduct."
The mayor stands by the arrested officers as well as the chief, despite the fact that the police commission chair says that "he had no quarrel with the overall picture the indictment and the December report painted of the department and its dealings with Hispanic residents. And he said it was irresponsible for the mayor to have returned Chief Gallo to his job." A mayor from the other party had taken the chief off the job due to the FBI investigation.
The problem is not just about immigrant abuse, it's also about the misplaced loyalty that underlies the coverup of subordinates' behavior. The loyalty officials owe is to their town residents, even ones they may not especially like. And it is also to following laws, including those that require respecting people of different races and ethnicities.
According to an article in the New Haven Register today, the mayor said, "It’s unfortunate that our Police Department ... has to go through something like this. We basically have a very good Police Department. I stand by our Police Department from top to bottom.”
Nothing about how good an Hispanic community the town has, or how unfortunate it is that they've been put through something like this.
According to its charter, East Haven is supposed to have an ethics board. But I could find no mention of it anywhere on the town website. Nor could I find anything about the police commission. The only mention of the investigation on the city website is a letter from April 2010 thanking the city for its cooperation.
Googling the East Haven ethics board did show that there was an ethics board in 2009. It dismissed a complaint by a police commission member against the mayor who had replaced the man who is now the mayor again. The police chief also arrested the other-party mayor for what appears to have been an ethics issue. The only other mention of the ethics board that I could find was from 1993.
East Haven appears to have a lot more than a civil rights problem. It appears to have a serious case of institutional corruption, that is, of not following formal processes, of misplaced loyalty that leads not only to ethical misconduct, but also to covering it up and using ethics complaints and arrest to intimidate the opposition.
The two town bodies charged with overseeing police misconduct appear to be powerless or non-existent (and there is no ethics code). The town also appears to have a serious lack of ethical leadership. It has a mayor who is loyal to his subordinates, not to his community, and who appears to have done little in his eleven years as mayor to change the patterns of conduct in the government he has been asked to manage.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959
The town is East Haven, CT (most recently in the national news for a part of it being overrun by waves during Hurricane Irene), and the problem ostensibly involves the mistreatment of immigrants in town by certain police officials. That's the criminal point of view. But the real problem is loyalty. The police, and certain town officials, put their loyalty to each other ahead of their loyalty to the town's residents. Four police officers have been indicted, one of them the head of the police union, and it appears that the union and the mayor are solidly behind them.
It appears that even the police chief was involved in the coverup, by trying to get a priest moved to another parish, because he was trying to document the police officers' behavior.
Even worse, it appears that the police chief "barred members of East Haven’s police commission, a supervisory body that was trying to investigate the complaints, from entering the department without his permission." And according to the indictment, he "refused to provide the Police Commission with an arrest report involving [one of the officers], and dismissed the Police Commission’s request to investigate [another of the officers'] alleged misconduct."
The mayor stands by the arrested officers as well as the chief, despite the fact that the police commission chair says that "he had no quarrel with the overall picture the indictment and the December report painted of the department and its dealings with Hispanic residents. And he said it was irresponsible for the mayor to have returned Chief Gallo to his job." A mayor from the other party had taken the chief off the job due to the FBI investigation.
The problem is not just about immigrant abuse, it's also about the misplaced loyalty that underlies the coverup of subordinates' behavior. The loyalty officials owe is to their town residents, even ones they may not especially like. And it is also to following laws, including those that require respecting people of different races and ethnicities.
According to an article in the New Haven Register today, the mayor said, "It’s unfortunate that our Police Department ... has to go through something like this. We basically have a very good Police Department. I stand by our Police Department from top to bottom.”
Nothing about how good an Hispanic community the town has, or how unfortunate it is that they've been put through something like this.
According to its charter, East Haven is supposed to have an ethics board. But I could find no mention of it anywhere on the town website. Nor could I find anything about the police commission. The only mention of the investigation on the city website is a letter from April 2010 thanking the city for its cooperation.
Googling the East Haven ethics board did show that there was an ethics board in 2009. It dismissed a complaint by a police commission member against the mayor who had replaced the man who is now the mayor again. The police chief also arrested the other-party mayor for what appears to have been an ethics issue. The only other mention of the ethics board that I could find was from 1993.
East Haven appears to have a lot more than a civil rights problem. It appears to have a serious case of institutional corruption, that is, of not following formal processes, of misplaced loyalty that leads not only to ethical misconduct, but also to covering it up and using ethics complaints and arrest to intimidate the opposition.
The two town bodies charged with overseeing police misconduct appear to be powerless or non-existent (and there is no ethics code). The town also appears to have a serious lack of ethical leadership. It has a mayor who is loyal to his subordinates, not to his community, and who appears to have done little in his eleven years as mayor to change the patterns of conduct in the government he has been asked to manage.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959
Story Topics:
- Robert Wechsler's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
