The Institutional Corruption Behind Police Abuse of Immigrants
It's not every day that a neighboring town makes <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/connecticut-police-officers-…; target="”_blank”">the
front page of the New York <i>Times</i></a>. It's especially surprising when
the reason is, at heart, a local government ethics problem.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/79213523/MILLER-Et-Al-Indictment" target="”_blank”">the
indictment</a>, 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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://nhregister.com/articles/2012/01/25/news/metro/doc4f1ea3fe7c1fe44…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the New Haven <i>Register</i> today</a>, 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.”<br>
<br>
Nothing about how good an Hispanic community the town has, or how
unfortunate it is that they've been put through something like this.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
203-859-1959