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09/30/2022 03:29 PMA former Old Saybrook police officer’s appeal to the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration has been withdrawn.
In early January, the Old Saybrook Police Commission narrowly voted to fire Old Saybrook Police Officer Austin Harris after Harris filed a false police report and lied to his superiors about how the computer in his car was damaged.
Following the Police Commission’s decision, Harris appealed the decision to the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and a decision in the case was expected by September.
Juliet Manalan, the communications director for the Connecticut Department of Labor, Manalan, said the appeal had been withdrawn by the union attorney on Sept. 7. The withdrawal of the case ends a long appeal process that began in early 2022.
The police union’s grievance committee met with the Police Comssion following the January ruling in an effort to resolve the grievance. Following that meeting, Harris had 10 days to submit another appeal to the State Board of Mediation and Arbitrationk, according to Police Commission chairman Alfred Wilcox.
“The decision of that board shall be binding on all parties,” Wilcox told the Harbor News earlier this year.
In April, a spokesperson for the department said that Harris’s appeal would be heard in May, though a decision would not be expected until June. In June, however, Manalan told the Harbor News that the appeal was expected to take all summer and a decision wasn’t expected until September, before the appeal was withdrawn.
The Issue
Harris was fired due to an incident that took place in December 2021. An internal report on Harris’s firing from Old Saybrook Police Chief Michael Spera was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Harbor News.
The report stated that in the early hours of Dec. 15, Harris contacted a patrol sergeant to say that he had accidentally damaged the mobile data terminal (MDT) in his police car. The MDT contained a Panasonic Toughbook computer valued at $1,470.
Harris filed and signed a police report that stated in part: “While driving eastbound on Boston Post Road in the area of Shoreline Quick Lube, a large gathering of raccoons preceded to cross the road at the most opportune moment. I heavily applied my brakes and, in the process, slammed the bottom of my Yeti mug on the top of the Toughbook. This caused damage to the back of the computer and screen.”
A subsequent review of the damage to the car as well as of dashcam footage cast doubt on Harris’s version of events. After being told that an internal investigation was being done, Harris eventually confessed to Spera that he damaged the gear by waving his police baton while listening to music. Despite being told to only remove the baton during cleaning, training, or an approved use, Harris told Spera he would routinely remove it while listening to music.
Harris was placed on indefinite administrative leave following the meeting and Spera asked the Police Commission to fire the officer, which the commission narrowly voted to do.
In part of his report, Spera wrote, “I need to be able to trust the official word of a police officer. Once that trust relationship has eroded, it cannot be repaired. Based on Patrolman Harris’s actions of lying to his supervisor, creating and submitting a false police report, and only telling the truth when he realized his lies were exposed, I have lost all faith and confidence in Austin Harris’s ability to perform his sworn duties as an Old Saybrook police officer.”