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Will Work to Change

Please look closely at the police reform bill supported by State Senator Christine Cohen (D-12) and State Representative Robin Comey (D-102) that Governor Ned Lamont signed into law recently. A police officer can now be sued personally for his or her actions in the line of duty [under a wider range of circumstances]. At first glance, fine, this might seem okay. If someone does something wrong, they can be brought to court. Simple, right? Wrong.

So now we’ve got a situation where our police officers can be personally financially sued for doing their job. This will create meaningless lawsuits, especially if someone thinks that they can make some easy money by suing someone else. They will also be able to sue the town. This will add additional costs to the police offices and the town.

It will undermine the police officer’s ability to make critical, split-second decisions that can be critical between life and death. It will hurt the recruitment of good new police officers.

I support the notion of police reform, but not at the expense of basic respect and personal financial safety for our hard-working officers. Christine Cohen and Rob Comey voted for the bill. State Senate candidate Joe LaPorta (R) and 102nd Assembly District candidate Marc Riccio (R), if elected, say they will work to change the bill as written.

Hopefully, with more people that think like me, we will replace the people in Hartford who supported this bill.

Richard Aitro

Branford