By Thane Grauel
WESTPORT — Changes to the form people fill out to file a complaint against police, fire or EMS personnel were discussed Thursday by the Civilian Review Panel.
Michael Guthman, one of two new members on the now fully constituted five-member panel, said the heading atop the three-page complaint form would be changed from Westport Police Department to Civilian Review Panel.
Words matter
He said wording about how the complaint form is handled, based on which emergency agency is involved, and how it gets to the CRP, would have to be worked out.
As it is now, complainants are told to send the form to Police Department headquarters, or to a police email address.
“How does it actually get to the CRP, it becomes an open issue,” Guthman said.
“It’s one more avenue to encourage complaints to eventually get to us, if they’re comfortable going through you guys [police] that’s fine,” panel Chairman Harold Bailey said.
He recommended that a complaint sent directly to the CRP be answered by saying it had been received and would be forwarded to the appropriate agency for investigation.
Teresa Fabi, another new member, asked if anonymous complainants would have to be interviewed at some point.
“No,” said Deputy Police Chief David Farrell. “You can be anonymous and we’ll run with it.”
Guthman said another change he would make on the form’s first page are the fields asking for employer and occupation.
“It’s not necessary, right?” asked Selectwoman Andrea Moore, a member of the panel.
“I think someone who’s a little hesitant to make a complaint in the first place, ‘You mean my boss is going to find out about this …?’ ” Guthman said.
“The more information the better”
Farrell explained those fields on the questionnaire by saying that in investigations, “the more information the better.”
There also were questions about a field asking for the “Name of Person Assisting Complainant.”
Bailey suggested changing the wording.
“Any way that we can get the most information we can, we try,” Farrell said. “But you don’t have to fill in every box.”
Bailey asked if any box in the complaint form is absolutely required.
Farrell said no, but it’s hard to begin an investigation without a time, date and location. He said he thought most serious complainants would want to provide as much information as possible.
“Where we are now is, you know, the Police Department is intimidating, the uniforms are intimidating,” Farrell said, so the department is trying to open avenues for people to file complaints.
Spelling out consequences
Another part of the form some people might find intimidating was on the last page.
It reads: “I have read, or had read to me, the above and attached complaint and statement consisting of ___ pages. All of the answers are true and accurate to my knowledge. I understand that making a false statement intended to mislead a law enforcement officer in his official function is a violation of Connecticut General Statute 53a-157b and could result in my arrest and being fined and/or imprisoned.”
Fabi noted that investigations take a lot of work, and that reputations are at stake.
“I don’t think it’s asking too much,” she said.
“This is serious, you’re making a public accusation against a public servant,” she added.
“You’re making a complaint,” Bailey said, “and if it’s found not to be valid, under some perspective you can be arrested and you could be imprisoned. Is there a way to say this without having that last segment in there?”
The Civilian Review Panel reached a consensus that the first two sentences would remain in the questionnaire, but the third — mentioning false statements and possible imprisonment and/or fines — would be dropped.
The panel agreed to draft a new version of the form, and vote on it, possibly at its meeting at 9 a.m. July 14 in Town Hall.
Next month, the panel members will not have a regular meeting, but a training session instead.
Also at Thursday’s meeting, the panel approved wording for two letters regarding an earlier complaint in which a police officer was found not to have violated professional standards of the department, one to the complainant and the other to the officer.
The panel also discussed, in executive session, a current complaint regarding the performance of two officers.
Thane Grauel is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Westport Journal. Learn more about us here.
If anyone makes false accusations against a police officer, they ought to face consequences. It sounds like they will anyway, we are now just not warning them of those potential consequences, in an apparent effort to elicit more complaints. It’s more important to the people involved here to validate the fever dream that Westport is steeped in systemic racism than to protect the interests of the individuals who consider themselves victims.
In the wake of Uvalde, where police appeared hesitant to take any action, we need to think about supporting the people who risk their lives to keep us safe, not exposing them to ever more career risk. Westport is possibly the most entitled town in America- Westporters don’t like it when they are spoken to in a gruff manner by people they perceive as “blue collar.” How dare they! (Even if I was breaking a traffic law.) Westporters don’t like to lose and will skew the account of what happened to their advantage, injecting gender and racial politics as a strategy. Now more than ever we need to let the police do their jobs. The police are not our enemy. The criminals they protect us from-the ones who mug women downtown in broad daylight, the ones who enter our homes at 5am and steal our cars-they are the enemy. Please stop making Westport less safe.
Civilian Review Panel,
Forms to File Complaints Against (Westport) Cops being Revised….
Civilian Review Panel you forgot some forms:
Since you are targeting the people who are public servants and save Westporter’s in time of need.
Where are the forms for the First, Second, Third Selectwomen?
Where are the forms for the P&Z Commission members, Conservation members, ZBA commission, Tax collector, Tax Assessors?
Public Works Department, where are the forms to complain about the Civilian Review Panel, etc, etc.
The above departments are all Westport Public Servants.
You are Spotlighting the Police, Fire, and EMS only.
Look at it another way: what if the Police, Fire Dept, EMS decide to take 6 months off or quit!
I think what the Civilian Review Panel is doing is DIVIDING the Town of Westport, CT.
Sincerely,
Gerald F. Romano, Jr.
Mr. Romano is right on the money with his questions/comments. I question why the “Civilian Review Panel” is necessary at all. I have always found that our intelligent and talented leadership of the PD, FD and EMS has handled their business appropriately.We are pretty lucky that we can attract high calibre employees but I worry that may change. Full disclosure, I was a member of the WPD for nearly 30 years.