A Connecticut woman wants more than a reprimand against a police detective who traumatized two Black teenagers as they raised money for their football team.
The two boys were wearing their Conard High School jerseys last summer as they sold "Chieftain Cards," offering discounts to local restaurants as part of a long-standing team fundraiser, when an officer in a police vest asked what they were doing in the West Hartford neighborhood, reported Patch.
The officer said his wife, who was later identified as another Hartford police detective, was "terrified" that the teens had knocked on her door, according to a complaint filed by one of the boys' mother.
The boys told investigators the officer was visibly angry and displayed "a whole bunch of attitude" toward them, before getting back into his SUV and driving away.
Neither officer was identified in reports.
The teens reported the Aug. 26 incident to their mother right away, who then filed a complaint, and an internal investigation found the detective had left an active investigation and confronted the boys after his wife called.
Hartford police chief Jason Thody said officers investigated six charges -- harassment, neglect of duty, discourteous attitude, conduct unbecoming an officer, violation of the code of conduct and a civil rights violation.
Two of those, neglect of duty and violation of the code of conduct, were sustained.
The chief apologized to mother Keesha Answer for "the trauma that your son and his friend have experienced."
"Regardless of which charges were sustained, your son and his friend were not doing anything wrong, and this interaction with law enforcement was unnecessary," Thody said. "I completely understand why you feel the officers' response was racially motivated."
But the chief said the civil rights violation was not sustained because the officer was not responding to the specific identity of Answer's son and his friend, but rather to a call from his wife, who had been "unnecessarily" alarmed when she was awoken by the boys' knock.
"I recognize that may be unsatisfactory to you, and I understand why," the chief wrote. "I hope you know that the charges that were sustained, neglect of duty and violation of the code of conduct, are serious ... I expect officers to behave, and it is the kind of behavior that undermines trust."
Answer was not satisfied by the explanation, just as the chief expected, and plans to hire a civil rights attorney.
"The reprimand is only acknowledging that an assignment was abandoned," she told Patch, "not the harassment."
