UniondefendsCT state troopers amid police ticket scandal: 'These are serious allegations'

Jul. 26—"The Connecticut State Police Union has never been afraid of a full, fair and thorough investigation, so all the facts are known," Matthews said, admitting that the union usually has a policy of not commenting on pending administrative or criminal investigations. "These are serious allegations. We should not listen to the press, who sometimes twist their headlines or suggests or implies, like I've recently read, that there is system racism in the State Police. I don't believe that's true."

Matthews and Fedigan said that the vast majority of troopers are dedicated.

"We think it's important to protect the good names and reputations of the troopers, the men and women that risk their life every day for the state," said Matthews, a former union president. "If there are a few people that have conducted themselves in a way that is unacceptable, we have a proven history and track record of suggesting to those people and encouraging them to resign and retire if they are eligible. We know the many men and women who are on the list of 68 current troopers, they are good men and woman that we know work with integrity, and if there are a few in there, which it appears there may be, that did not conduct themselves that way, they won't be members of the State Police in the future."

Matthews, responding to statements made a few minutes earlier by James Rovella, commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said the issue is not about false infractions, which were reviewed by the state Racial Profiling Prohibition Project. "This is about fake statistics," Matthews said, recalling during the state's special session on police accountability in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, he warned lawmakers that ticket quotas were dangerous.

"What happens, and I've always been honest with you, is that you get pressure from your superior," Matthews said. "You don't get certain work assignments. You don't get a new car. You get transferred further away from your home. These are real things that affect people and their lives. So they feel pressure, so they go out and write people tickets when it's not necessary. We don't need to be writing people tickets for minor motor vehicle offenses to satisfy the bosses about statistics. This is not a systemic issue, it's an individual issue."

A few minutes earlier, Rovella, flanked by top State Police leaders, said he was angered by the June audit report that indicated a wide discrepancy in racial data, which was mandated in a 1999 law named after the late state Sen. Alvin W. Penn of Bridgeport, who was stopped by Trumbull Police one day while trying to take a load of laundry to a dry cleaner's. The law was updated in 2013. In addition to an investigation under way by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Rovella said he expects an imminent federal criminal probe.

"I take this very seriously," Rovella said in a crowded meeting room in the Legislative Office Building. "That is by far an understatement. I'm angry to say the least and disappointed that the conduct is even alleged. We'll work through these records. The ones who falsified records, we'll hold them accountable and there are consequences for those individuals."

"I think honestly, it's not just human error," Matthews said. "The real question is if there was true intent in your heart and mind. If you intended to skew the results because there was some underlying racial issue, then you don't belong. But I don't think that's the majority of it and I hope I'm right. I think there is a difference between fake tickets and racial data issues in this."

"There's simple answers that I don't want to speak of," said Fedigan, deferring to State Police leaders on further explanation. "As Andy stated, we welcome an independent investigation. Of the 68 the commissioner mentioned of my active troopers, many of which I have worked with for several years because I have seen a list of the names. These are people that embody character, integrity and their reputation is the utmost. I think we as an agency did not do a good enough job from (2014) to emphasis to the road troopers that are actually doing the job in the field the importance of that data. It was never sent home in the minds of the troopers."

During a question-and-answer session, state Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, asked Matthews if he ever filed false data or information. He denied it, stressing that during July of 2018, while he was concentrating on being union president, he sometimes called in to dispatchers information on the occasional traffic stop. Matthews said earlier on Wednesday, Rovella had told him that he was flagged on 47 cases.

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"I would never do that in my 20-plus years as a state trooper," Matthews said, stressing that he took the oldest car in the fleet because he was only occasionally involved in traffic enforcement. "I hand wrote all my tickets and every time I made a traffic stop, never falsified one bit of record. Every record is accurate. This is why I'm saying there are flaws in this report. I would call in. No one checked to see if the dispatcher — it's on record, it's on the recording — but who knows if they put it in the system. I was flagged. It's not accurate. It's not true. I called in every racial-profiling data."