Connecticut troopers falsified data on traffic stops reported to racial profiling board, audit says

HARTFORD, Conn. — Hundreds of Connecticut state police troopers falsified information on at least 26,000 traffic stops from 2014 to 2021, skewing reports on the race and ethnicity of pulled-over motorists, according to an audit released Wednesday. The audit found that the number of traffic infractions reported to the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project advisory board didn’t match those reported to the state court system, which handles all traffic citations, according to analysts with the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at the University of Connecticut. “This audit reveals a breathtaking disrespect for the state’s racial profiling prohibition law by Connecticut State Police employees and, even worse, for that law’s goal of reducing systemic racism in policing,” said Claudine Constant, the group’s public policy and advocacy director. “The State Police are deeply committed to ensuring the integrity of Connecticut’s racial profiling data and to maintaining public confidence in the essential public safety services our troopers provide each day,” the statement said. The institute said Wednesday that the integrity of those analyses was in question because the falsified records “were more likely to be reported as White drivers and less likely to be reported as Black or Hispanic drivers.” The audit also found that some state police data was underreported to the racial profiling board, and those records were more likely to involve Hispanic drivers.